Robert Aldrich

Robert Burgess Aldrich (August 9, 1918 – December 5, 1983) was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. An iconoclastic and maverick auteur working in many genres during the Golden Age of Hollywood, he directed mainly films noir, war movies, westerns and dark melodramas with Gothic overtones. His most notable credits include Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), Autumn Leaves (1956), Attack (1956), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).

Containing a "macho mise-en-scene and resonant reworkings of classic action genres," Aldrich's films were known for pushing the boundaries of violence in mainstream cinema, as well as for their psychologically complex interpretations of genre film tropes. The British Film Institute wrote that Aldrich's work displays "a subversive sensibility in thrall to the complexities of human behaviour." Several of his films later proved influential to members of the French New Wave.

Aside from his directorial work, Aldrich was also noted for his advocacy as a member of the Directors Guild of America, serving as its president for two terms, and becoming the namesake for its Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award.

Robert Burgess Aldrich was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, into a family of wealth and social prominence – "The Aldriches of Rhode Island". His father, Edward Burgess Aldrich (1871–1957) was the publisher of The Times of Pawtucket and an influential operative in state Republican politics. His mother, Lora Elsie (née Lawson) of New Hampshire (1874–1931), died when Aldrich was 13 and was remembered with fondness by her son. Ruth Aldrich Kaufinger (1912–1987) was his elder sister and only sibling.

Among his notable ancestors were the American Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene and the theologian Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island Colony.

His grandfather, Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, was a self-made millionaire and art investor. A Republican member of the U.S. Senate for thirty years (1881–1911), he was dubbed "General Manager of the Nation" by the press for his dominant role in framing federal monetary policy.

A number of Aldrich's paternal uncles had impressive careers, among them a successful investment banker, an architect and Harvard instructor, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank who also served as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. An aunt, Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich married John D. Rockefeller Jr., scion of the Standard Oil fortune, and was a leading figure in the establishment of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Nelson Rockefeller, a four-term governor of New York State and U.S. vice-president under Gerald Ford, and Rockefeller's four brothers were the director's first cousins.

As the only male heir to the Lawson-Aldrich family line, Aldrich was under considerable pressure to compete successfully with his numerous cousins in a family of high achievers.