Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early 1950s, and directed his first feature in 1953 (Big Leaguer). Soon thereafter he established his own production company and produced most of his own films, collaborating in the writing of many of them. Among his best-known pictures are Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me Deadly, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and the muscular WW II mega-hit The Dirty Dozen.
Nephew of John D. Rockefeller Jr. . Father of director Adell Aldrich Father of William Aldrich. President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). [1975-1979] Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 8-14. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988. Directed 5 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Victor Buono, Bette Davis, Agnes Moorehead, Ian Bannen and John Cassavetes. Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1959 Interviewed in Peter Bogdanovich's "Who the Devil Made It: Conversations With Robert Aldrich, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Chuck Jones, Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Sidney Lumet, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Don Siegel, Josef von Sternberg, Frank Tashlin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Raoul Walsh". NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997