Ted Post
{{Short description|American director (1918–2013)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ted Post
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Theodore Ian Post
| birth_date = {{birth date|1918|3|31}}
| birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|2013|8|20|1918|3|31}}
| death_place = Santa Monica, California, U.S.
| occupation = Director
| spouse = {{marriage|Thelma Fiefel
|1940|2013}} (his death)
| children = 2, including Robert C. Post
}}
Theodore Ian Post (March 31, 1918 – August 20, 2013) was an American director of film and television.{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/person/106917/Ted-Post |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514055149/http://movies.nytimes.com/person/106917/Ted-Post |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 14, 2008 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=The New York Times |date=2008 |title=Ted Post }} Highly prolific, Post directed numerous episodes of well-known television series including Rawhide, Gunsmoke, and The Twilight Zone as well as blockbuster films such as Hang 'Em High, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Magnum Force.
Early life and career
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Post started his career in 1938 working as an usher at Loew's Pitkin Theater.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}} He abandoned plans to become an actor after training with Tamara Daykarhanova, and turned to directing summer theater, where Post began his lengthy association in the director's chair. Upon returning home from his service with the U.S. Army's Special Services division in Italy during World War II,{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/movies/ted-post-director-for-film-and-television-dies-at-95.html | title=Ted Post, Director for Film and Television, Dies at 95 | newspaper=The New York Times | date=August 25, 2013 | last1=Vitello | first1=Paul }} he resumed his experience in theater and when the new medium of television was born, his career took off.
Post taught acting and drama at New York's High School of Performing Arts in 1950. He persuaded his friend Sidney Lumet to do likewise.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}}
Directorial career
Success in the theater led to directorial work in television from the early 1950s, beginning with The Ford Television Theatre. Post directed episodes of many series, including Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, Wagon Train, Rawhide, The Twilight Zone, Combat!, Columbo and 178 episodes of Peyton Place. He also directed TV films (including the original Cagney & Lacey film-of-the-week).
He also directed feature films, including the second installment of the Planet of the Apes film series, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Go Tell the Spartans (1978), Good Guys Wear Black (1978), starring Chuck Norris, and two Clint Eastwood films, Hang 'Em High, the movie which launched Clint Eastwood's career as a leading man in American pictures, and Magnum Force.{{cite web |work=The New York Times |title='Magnum Force': Police Story Is Sequel to 'Dirty Harry' |first=Nora |last=Sayre |date=December 26, 1973 |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9803E4D71731E63BBC4E51DFB4678388669EDE}}
Post directed the 2001–02 Festival of the Arts at the University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University).{{citation needed|date=September 2017}}
Personal life
Post married the former Thelma Fiefel in 1940. They had two children, one of whom is the law scholar and professor Robert Post.
Post died at the UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, California on August 20, 2013.{{cite news |url=http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-ted-post-20130821,0,1653212.story |title=Ted Post dies at 95; veteran TV and movie director |first=Dennis |last=McLellan |work=Los Angeles Times |date=August 20, 2013 |location=Los Angeles |issn=0458-3035 |access-date=August 21, 2013}}
Selected filmography
= Film =
{{colbegin}}
- The Peacemaker (1956)
- The Legend of Tom Dooley (1959)
- Hang 'Em High (1968)
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
- The Baby (1973)
- The Harrad Experiment (1973)
- Magnum Force (1973)
- Whiffs (1975)
- Good Guys Wear Black (1978)
- Go Tell the Spartans (1978)
- Nightkill (1980)
- The Human Shield (1991)
- 4 Faces (1999)
{{colend}}
= TV movies =
{{colbegin}}
- The Great Merlini (1951, pilot)
- Espionage: Far East (1961)
- Night Slaves (1970)
- Dr. Cook's Garden (1971)
- Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971)
- Yuma (1971)
- Five Desperate Women (1971)
- The Bravos (1972)
- Sandcastles (1972)
- The Girls in the Office (1979)
- Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker (1979)
- Cagney & Lacey (1981)
- Stagecoach (1986)
{{colend}}
= Television =
{{colbegin}}
- Armstrong Circle Theatre (1952)
- The Ford Television Theatre (1953)
- Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1953)
- Gunsmoke (1955)
- Medic (1955)
- Zane Grey Theatre (1956)
- Screen Directors Playhouse (1956)
- The 20th Century Fox Hour (1956)
- Sneak Preview (1956)
- Perry Mason (1957)
- Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957)
- West Point (1957)
- Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1958)
- The Rifleman (1958)
- Law of the Plainsman (1959)
- The Westerner (1960)
- Checkmate (1960)
- Startime (1960) (The Young Juggler)
- Wagon Train (1960)
- Insight (1960)
- Alcoa Premiere (1961)
- The Defenders (1961)
- Route 66 (1961)
- The Virginian (1962)
- Combat! (1962)
- Empire (1962)
- Thriller (1961–1962)
- General Electric Theater (1962)
- Bus Stop (1962)
- Rawhide (1960–1962)
- Peyton Place (1964)
- The Twilight Zone (1960–1964)
- Bracken's World (1969)
- Monty Nash (1971)
- Baretta (1975)
- Ark II (1976)
- Columbo (1976)
- Future Cop (1977)
- Beyond Westworld (1980)
- B.A.D. Cats (1980)
= Short films =
- The Return of Phileas Fogg (1957)
{{colend}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|692872}}
- {{cite web |url= http://www.dga.org/Craft/VisualHistory/Interviews/Ted-Post.aspx |title=Ted Post (1918–2013) |work=Directors Guild of America}}
{{Ted Post}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Post, Ted}}
Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:21st-century American Jews
Category:American Jewish University
Category:American television directors
Category:Burials at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery
Category:Film directors from New York City
Category:Jewish American military personnel
Category:Military personnel from New York City
Category:Military personnel from New York (state)
Category:Mass media people from Brooklyn