Richard Fleischer, Director of 'Conan', Dies at 89

Richard Fleischer, director of such successful Hollywood blockbusters as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Conan the Destroyer (1984) passed away on Saturday, March 25th. The 89-year old Fleischer died of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

His son, Mark Fleischer, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying of his father, "My parents made a great effort to insulate their children from the craziness of Hollywood," he said. "They made sure our lives were as normal as possible."

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Richard Fleischer was the son of animator, Max Fleischer. Max receieved widespread notoriety for animating characters such as Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman and Koko the Clown on the movie screen, as well as for developing various animation styles, including the rotograph. Creating a film career for himself, Richard first signed on to work with RKO Studios in 1942, starting out with his very first title, Memo for Joe, and continuing on to make a series of shorts and documentaries, as well as compilations of silent films. These so-called Flicker Flashbacks took up most of his time from 1947 to 1948. After these Flicker Flashbacks, Fleischer went on to make a series of film noir thrillers, which included The Clay Pigeon (1949), Follow Me Quietly (1949), Armored Car Robbery (1950), His Kind of Woman (1951) and The Narrow Margin (1952). The Los Angeles Times quotes Leonard Maltin as calling The Narrow Margin "one of the best B-pictures ever made".

Richard Fleischer got his big break when he received a call from none other than Walt Disney. Walt Disney had sought Fleischer out in order to offer him the director position for his upcoming film, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In 1954, the adaptation of Jules Verne's classic novel, starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason, became a huge success, winning 2 Academy Awards and getting 2 more nominations. The success of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ensured that Richard Fleischer would be one of the big name of Hollywood for years to come, and that his days of directing B-movies would be few and far between.

While Fleischer struggled to repeat his success of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with years of smaller name features coming through. Fleischer did well to discover easy-going action movies, such as Violent Saturday and Bandido. After this exploration of action, Richard Fleischer regained his high level of success with 1962's Barabbas, another special effects-laden feature about one man's life after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Starring Anthony Quinn, and having names like Ernest Borgnine, Jack Palance and Arthur Kennedy, Fleischer shot the film in Rome, and created a classic film.

Richard Fleischer's next big movie would be Fantastic Voyage. Starring Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch, Fantastic Voyage would become a classic of the sci-fi genre. Fleischer would follow that up with the originalDoctor Dolittle, and the biographical drama Che!, working with names like Omar Sharif, Jack Palance and Robert Loggia.

Richard Fleischer's next movie would be one of his biggest, as he undertook the Would War II movie, Tora! Tora! Tora!. Fleischer would be responsible for the U.S. half of the production, leaving Kinji Fukasaku in charge of the Japanese half of the movie. Again, Fleischer's film came to be one of the defining movies of the World War II movie genre. He went on to make Soylent Green, one of the few movies he would make dealing with capital punishment.

As well as doing movies like 1975's Mandingo and 1979's Ashanti, Richard Fleischer would go on to make his final big name movie, Conan the Destroyer. Starring now-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Destroyer helped continue the momentum Schwarzenegger had built up from the first Conan movie. Speaking about Richard Fleischer, the BBC quoted Gov. Schwarzenegger as saying "He was a man of great talent and an extraordinary director", calling him "a true Hollywood legend". The third movie of the Conan series, Red Sonya would not do as well for either Fleischer or Schwarzenegger.

In 1993, Fleischer published an autobiography, in which he talked about the problems he had with various actors. As the BBC reports, "Fleischer spoke candidly about both [Kirk Douglas and Rex Harrison], saying Douglas was "very, very difficult" and that he'd wanted to give Harrison "a swift kick in the head".

Richard Fleischer is survived by his wife, Mary, their three children and their five grandchildren.

[Additional Sources: Los Angeles Times, BBC]