
Robert Parrish
Robert R. Parrish (born 4 January 1916, Columbus, Georgia – 4 December 1995, Southampton, New York) was an American actor, film editor, film director, and writer. He received an Academy Award for Film Editing for the 1947 film, Body and Soul. Parrish was the son of factory cashier Gordon R. Parrish and Laura R. Parrish. In the mid-1920s, the family moved from Georgia to Los Angeles and Parrish and his sisters Beverly and Helen began obtaining work as actors soon thereafter. Parrish made his film debut in the 1927 Our Gang short Olympic Games. (Their mother, Laura R. Parrish, was an actress as well and appeared in a few films of the 1940s.) He appeared in the anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Charles Chaplin's City Lights (1931), and in several films for John Ford. Ford then enlisted him as an assistant editor in 1936 on Mary of Scotland, and as a sound editor on Young Mr Lincoln (1939). Parrish worked as an assistant editor and sound editor on other Ford movies as Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Parrish and Ford were in the United States Navy during the Second World War, and worked on documentary and training films including The Battle of Midway (1942). In 1947 he won an Oscar for his debut as a feature film editor on Robert Rossen's high tempo boxing drama Body and Soul; the award was shared with Francis Lyon. Parrish was later nominated for another Rossen film – the political drama All the King’s Men (1949); he shared the nomination with Al Clark. Parrish went on to contribute his technical talents to a host of highly regarded films and made a promising directorial debut in 1951 with the gripping revenge melodrama, Cry Danger. His subsequent output met with varying success. The Purple Plain (1954) was nominated for "Best British film" at the 8th British Academy Film Awards. One of the most notorious of his films was the James Bond Parody Casino Royale (1967), in which he was one of the film's five directors. His last film, on which he shared co-director credit with Bertrand Tavernier, was Mississippi Blues (1983). Parrish wrote two memoirs, Growing Up in Hollywood (1976) and its sequel Hollywood Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1988). Of the first, Kevin Brownlow wrote, "His stories about these pictures were marvellous in themselves, and he often came at them sideways, so not only the punchline but the situation took you by surprise. We all entreated him to write them down and in 1976 he did so, producing one of the most enchanting - and hilarious - books about the picture business ever written. It was called Growing Up in Hollywood and it ought to be reprinted in this centenary year." Summing up Parrish's career, Allen Grant Richards wrote, "Other than his excellent editing work and early directing, Parrish may be most remembered as storyteller from his two books of Hollywood memoirs."
17
Films
1
TV Shows
23
Crew Credits
Known For
18 Credits
City Lights
as Newsboy (uncredited)
1931

All Quiet on the Western Front
as Schoolboy (uncredited)
1930

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
as Boy (uncredited)
1927

The Informer
as Young Soldier
1935

History Is Made at Night
1937

Sodankylä Forever
as Self
2010

Scandal Sheet
as Copy Boy
1931

Steamboat Round the Bend
as Boy
1935

Blue Bayou
as Tony
1990

Up the River
as Boy (uncredited)
1930

Sodankylä Forever
as Self
2010

Doctor Bull
as Teenager
1933
Behind the Camera
23 Credits
The Twilight Zone
Director
1959

The Twilight Zone
Director
2002

Casino Royale
Director
1967

Johnny Staccato
Director
1959

Up from the Beach
Director
1965

The Purple Plain
Director
1954

Doppelgänger
Director
1969

The Wonderful Country
Director
1959

The Marseille Contract
Director
1974

The Mob
Director
1951

Cry Danger
Director
1951

Duffy
Director
1968