Franklin Schaffner Biography
Franklin James Schaffner was an American filmmaker and former sailor born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1920 to a family of missionaries. After spending his childhood in Japan, the family moved to the United States, where Schaffner graduated from J.P. McCaskey High School as valedictorian in 1938. He later graduated from Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) in Lancaster, where he was active in the program theater and president of the Green Room Club.
Schaffner interrupted his law studies at Columbia University to serve in the United States Navy during World War II, during which he distinguished himself as an assistant director on the documentary series The March of Time and subsequently served at the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in the Far East Pacific.
After the war, Schaffner worked as director of CBS Television's news and public affairs department, and later as a director on numerous television productions, stage plays, and film adaptations. His best-known works include "Twelve Angry Men," for which he won an Emmy as best director, and the television adaptation of "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial," for which he returned to win an Emmy that year. following.
Among other notable successes, Schaffner directed the television production “A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy,” in collaboration with the first First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Kennedy and CBS television musical director Alfredo Antonini, who earned critical acclaim and a nomination from the Directors Guild of America for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television" in 1963.
Schaffner died at the age of 69 on July 2, 1989, days after being released from the hospital where he had been treated for lung cancer.
