Richard Donner

Richard Donner born Richard Donald Schwartzberg April 24 1930 July 5 2021 was an American filmmaker Described as one of Hollywoods most reliable makers of action blockbusters Donner directed some of the most financially successful films of the 1970s and 1980s His career spanning more than six decades crossed genres and influenced trends among filmmakers across the world Donner began his career in 1957 as a television director In the 1960s he directed episodes of the series The Rifleman The Man from UNCLE The Fugitive The Twilight Zone The Banana Splits and many others Donner made his film debut with the lowbudget aviation drama X15 in 1961 but had his critical and commercial breakthrough with the horror film The Omen in 1976 He directed the landmark superhero film Superman in 1978 which provided an inspiration for the fantasy film genre to eventually gain artistic respectability and commercial dominance Donner later went on to direct films in the 1980s such as The Goonies and Scrooged while reinvigorating the buddy cop film genre with the Lethal Weapon series Donner and his wife Lauren owned a production company The Donners Company which is most successful for producing the Free Willy and XMen film franchises Donner also produced Tales from the Crypt and cowrote several comic books for Superman publisher DC Comics In 2000 Donner received the Presidents Award from the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films Description above from the Wikipedia article Richard Donner licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia