Ralph Nelson

Ralph Nelson was an American director, producer, and writer who worked across film, television, and theater. Born in Queens, New York, in 1916, he studied acting and later toured with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as an actor and stage manager. He had a play on Broadway, The Wind Is Ninety, in 1945. On television he directed the Twilight Zone episode A World of His Own and both the small screen and cinema versions of Requiem for a Heavyweight, earning an Emmy for Best Director in 1957. His features included Lilies of the Field (1963), which helped Sidney Poitier win the Best Actor Oscar and gave Nelson a Best Picture nomination, and Charly (1968), whose leading man Cliff Robertson took an Academy Award. Nelson also directed Duel at Diablo (1966), making a brief appearance in it, the Cary Grant comedy Father Goose, and the racially provocative Soldier Blue (1970).