John Berry

John Berry (born Jak Szold; September 6, 1917 – November 29, 1999) was an American film and theatre director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He went into exile in France when his career was interrupted by the Hollywood blacklist.

Early life Berry was born Jak Szold in The Bronx, New York, the son of a Polish-Jewish father and a Romanian mother. He was a child performer in vaudeville, first going on stage at the age of four. In his teens he briefly worked as a boxer under the name Jackie Sold.

Berry's father was a restaurateur who at one point owned 28 restaurants around New York City but he went out of business during the Great Depression and Berry sought to support himself by working as a comedian and master of ceremonies in the Catskill resorts as well as working as an actor.

Career

Mercury Theatre and Hollywood Berry's first big break came when he was hired by the Mercury Theatre for its debut production, titled Caesar (1937). Berry acted in other roles with the theater and assisted Orson Welles in directing the 1942 production of Native Son. In a late-life interview with The New York Times, Berry spoke positively of his association with Welles and John Houseman, who co-founded the Mercury. "It was like living near the center of a volcano of creating inspiration and fury, glamorous and exciting, full of the kind of theatricality that seems lost forever," he said.

Berry returned to direct the musical Casbah (1948) for Tony Martin's production company featuring Martin and Yvonne De Carlo for Universal, Tension (1950) for MGM and He Ran All the Way (1951) starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. Unable to secure work, Berry left the U.S. and resettled with his family in Paris.

During the 1950s, Berry directed two films starring Eddie Constantine, Ça va barder (1953) and Je suis un sentimental (1955) and he also directed Tamango (1958), a film about a slave uprising that starred Dorothy Dandridge.

Death Berry died in Paris on November 29, 1999, aged 82.

Legacy Berry's experiences during the Hollywood blacklist era were the inspiration for the character played by Robert De Niro in the film Guilty by Suspicion (1991).

Selected filmography

Miss Susie Slagle's (1946) From This Day Forward (1946) Cross My Heart (1946) Casbah (1948) Tension (1950) The Hollywood Ten (1950) Atoll K (1950) He Ran All the Way (1951) It Happened in Paris (1952) Give 'em Hell (1955) Je suis un sentimental (1955) Don Juan (1956) Tamango (1958) Oh! Qué mambo (1959) Maya (1966) À tout casser (1968) Claudine (1974) Thieves (1977) The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978) Sister, Sister (1982)