Delbert Mann

Who was Delbert Mann?

Delbert Martin Mann, Jr. was an American television and film director. He won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty. It was the first Best Picture winner to be based on a television program, being adapted from a 1953 teleplay of the same name which he had also directed. Mann is also the only director other than Billy Wilder and Roman Polanski to win an Oscar for his direction and a Cannes Palme d'Or for the same film. From 1967 to 1971, he was president of the Directors Guild of America. Mann's work is often seen to be part of the expressive sentimental style of film directing.

Mann was born in Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas, the son of Ora, a civic worker and teacher, and Delbert Martin Mann, Sr., a college professor. Mann graduated from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. After school, he served with the U.S. Army Air Forces in WW II, as a combat pilot of a B-24 Liberator of the 467th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force in England. After his discharge he attended Yale Drama School, and graduated, followed by work in theater and eventually, TV and movies.