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The
son of famed animator Max Fleischer (Popeye, Betty Boop
et. al.), Richard O. Fleischer was a psychology student
at Brown University when he dropped out in favor of
the Yale Drama Department. At age 21, Fleischer organized
a campus theatrical troupe called the Arena Players.
In
1942, he went to work for RKO-Pathe in New York, editing
the company's weekly newsreels before producing and
directing his own short-subject projects, including
the March of Time-like This is America and a series
of gagged-up silent-film vignettes titled Flicker Flashbacks.
In 1946, he headed to Hollywood, there to direct feature
films for Pathe's parent studio, RKO Radio; his last
short-subject effort was the Oscar-winning Design for
Death (1948).
Fleischer moved on to MGM, then to Walt Disney Studios.
While working for Disney he helmed his first big-budgeter,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). He evinced a fondness
for crime and suspense pictures, notably Violent Saturday
(1955), Compulsion (1959) and The Boston Strangler (1968).
While many of his films were box-office bonanzas, he
also turned out an equal number of unsuccessful films
including Dr. Doolittle (1967) and Che! (1969). A true
survivor, Fleischer was able to remain active until
the late 1980s, by which time he'd chalked up fewer
and fewer hits like The New Centurions (1972) and more
and more misses like The Jazz Singer (1980) and Million
Dollar Mystery (1987).
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