Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
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Jules Dassin

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Jules Dassin

Julius "Jules" Dassin (/ˈdæsɪn, dæˈsɪn/ DASS-in, dass-IN; December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, where he continued his career. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Directors' Guild.

Dassin received a Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Du rififi chez les hommes. He was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen for his film Never on Sunday, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for his Broadway production of Illya Darling.

Julius Dassin was born in Middletown, Connecticut, on December 18, 1911, to Bertha (née Vogel) and Samuel Dassin, a barber. His parents were both Jewish immigrants from Odesa, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). Julius had seven siblings, including four brothers, Louis C., Benjamin, Irving and Edward; and three sisters.

In 1915, when Julius was three years old, the Dassin family moved to Harlem, New York. He attended public grammar school where he received his first acting role in a school play. Julius was given a small part but when came time to speak his only line, he fainted due to stage fright. He also learned to play the piano at a young age. During his youth he attended Camp Kinderland, a left-wing Yiddish youth camp.

Julius attended Morris High School in the Bronx. He started acting professionally in 1926, at the age of fourteen, with the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City. On October 13, 1929, newspaper columnist Mark Hellinger printed a story given to him by Dassin in the New York Daily News; nearly twenty years later, the two would work together in Hollywood.

On July 11, 1933, Julius' older brother Louis was arrested in Meriden, Connecticut when he confessed to the theft of $12,000 from the Puritan Bank and Trust Company, where he worked as a teller and treasurer. On September 10, 1933, when he was 21 years old, Julius married Beatrice Launer, a concert violinist and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music.

Beginning in 1934, Julius spent three years studying dramatic technique in Europe. He spent time in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, England, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Switzerland and Greece, working odd jobs to sustain himself.

After returning from Europe in 1936, Dassin joined the Children's Theatre, a division of the Federal Theatre Project during the Great Depression. It was during this time that he joined the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The troupe put on children's plays at the Adelphi Theatre in New York City. During this time, he played the role of Zar in The Emperor's New Clothes in September 1936, and the role of Oakleaf in Revolt of the Beavers, which ran from May 20, 1937, to June 19, 1937. The later play was criticized as strongly communist.

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