Edward Dmytryk

He married Madeline Robinson in 1932 and divorced her in 1947. He had a son, Michael J. from this marriage.

He married actress Jean Porter in May 1948 and had a son, Richard and two daughters, Victoria and Rebecca with her.

Edward Dmytryk died of heart and kidney failure in Encino, California, on July 1, 1999 at the age of 90.

Edward Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada on September 4, 1908.

His father was a Ukrainian immigrant named Michael Dmytryk and his mother was Frances Berezowski. He had three siblings. One of his brothers was Arthur while his step-mother was Clara Mertz.

The family moved to Los Angeles, California after his mother’s death in 1913.

He did his schooling from the ‘Hollywood High School’ in Hollywood, California.

In 1923, at the age of 14, he ran away from home and started working as a messenger and office boy at the ‘Famous-Lasky Studios’. He also learnt how to splice films and operate the projector.

Edward Dmytryk became an editor after returning to Paramount Pictures and edited the films ‘Only Saps Work’ in 1930, ‘The Royal Family of Broadway’ in 1931, ‘College Rhythm’ and ‘Belle of Nineties’ in 1934 and ‘Ruggles of Red Gap’ in 1935.

His directing debut was with the western movie ‘The Hawk’ in 1935.

In 1936 he edited ‘Too Many Parents’, ‘Easy to Take’ ‘Three Cheers for Love’ and ‘Three Married Men’.

In 1937 he directed his second film ‘The Trail of the Hawk’ and went back to editing with ‘Murder Goes to College’, ‘Turn Off the Moon’, ‘Double or Nothing’ and ‘Hold ‘Em Navy!’ all in 1937, ‘Bulldog Drummonds Peril’ and ‘Prison Farm’ in 1938, ‘Some Like it Hot’, ‘Love Affair’ and ‘Zaza’ in 1939.

He was not credited for ‘Million Dollar Legs’ in 1939 though he completed it within schedule when its actual director Nick Grindle was dumped by ‘Paramount’.

Edward Dmytryk wrote a series of books on films which included ‘On Film Editing’, ‘On Screen Writing’ and ‘Cinema: Concept and Practice’ published in 1984, 1985 and 1988 respectively.