Donald Wrye

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Donald Malcolm Wrye (born September 24, 1934 in Riverside (California) , United States - † May 15, 2015 in Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) , United States) was an American film and television director , screenwriter and producer .

Live and act

Wrye studied at the University of Arizona and then attended film classes at UCLA in Los Angeles . In 1961, while still a student, he served as an assistant director for the B-film Early Ripe Generation . In the mid-1960s, Wrye began to produce his own film documentaries, whose clients were both television and movie production companies. For two of these works, An Impression of John Steinbeck: Writer and The Numbers Start with the River , Wrye received an Oscar nomination in the early 1970s in the category “ Best Short Documentary ” . Eventually Donald Wrye was appointed to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and served for many years on its documentary committee.

After his Oscar nominations, Wrye also appeared to be of interest to classic entertainment films. He shot an abundance of conventional productions, most of which were made for television. Of primary importance was a 1975 TV remake of the John Osborne play The Entertainer with Jack Lemmon as Archie Rice; the role that Laurence Olivier had already played with flying colors in the British first film adaptation in 1959 . Lemmon was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his performance . Thereupon Wrye was offered directing a movie for the first time in 1977/78. The result was the very soulful ice skater melodrama Eisfieber , which received only a moderate response from critics, but was a moderate success with the public. Wrye's later work is hardly worth mentioning; only his seven-part Cold War drama America , produced for television in 1986, caused plenty of negative headlines due to its primitive anti-Russian style and resulted in Wrye remaining unemployed until the early 1990s. Donald Wrye last shot a remake of his greatest box-office success Eisfieber in 2009 , which was released directly on DVD in Germany under the programmatic title Eisfieber 2 .

Donald Wrye was married to the same woman for almost 28 years; from this marriage came the children Gabriel, Ariel and Catalina.

Filmography (selection)

as director, unless otherwise stated:

  • 1966: Destination Safety (TV documentary)
  • 1968: Men From Boys: The First Eight Weeks (TV documentary)
  • 1968: California (TV documentary)
  • 1969: An Impression of John Steinbeck: Writer (documentary, also screenplay and production)
  • 1971: The Numbers Start With the River (documentary, also production)
  • 1973: The Man Who Could Talk to Kids (TV movie)
  • 1974: Born Innocent (TV movie)
  • 1975: Death Be Not Proud (TV film, also screenplay and production)
  • 1975: The Entertainer (The Entertainer) (TV movie)
  • 1977: It Happened One Christmas (TV movie)
  • 1978: Eisfieber (Ice Castles) (feature film, also screenplay)
  • 1981: Fire on the Mountain (TV movie)
  • 1982: Divorce Wars: A Love Story (TV film, also screenplay and production director)
  • 1983: The Face of Rage (TV movie, also screenplay)
  • 1983: Heart of Steel (TV movie)
  • 1984: The House of God (feature film, also screenplay)
  • 1985: Right to Kill? (Line producer only)
  • 1986: America (TV seven-parter, also screenplay and line producer)
  • 1990: 83 Hours' Til Dawn (TV Movie)
  • 1990: Lara's most beautiful day (Lucky Day) (TV film, also line producer)
  • 1991: Stranger in the Family (TV film, also line producer)
  • 1993: Broken Promises: Taking Emily Back (TV movie, also production)
  • 1994: Accused: The Father (Ultimate Betrayal) (TV film, also line producer)
  • 1994: Blutsbande (Separated by Murder) (TV film, also production)
  • 1994: A Family Divided (TV movie)
  • 1995: Kidnapped by my own father (Trail of Tears) (TV film, also line producer)
  • 1996: Not in This Town (TV movie)
  • 1997: High stakes game (TV film, also line producer)
  • 1999: A Vision of Murder: The Story of Donielle (TV film, also line producer)
  • 2000: Come Back to Life (Range of Motion) (TV movie)
  • 2007: Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape (TV film, also screenplay)
  • 2009: Eisfieber 2 (Ice Castles) (DVD production, also screenplay)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wrye, Donald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wrye, Donald Malcolm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film and television director, screenwriter, and producer
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Riverside (California) , United States
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 2015
Place of death Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , United States