Film director Frankenheimer dead at 72

LOS ANGELES -- John Frankenheimer, director of such Hollywood classics as "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Birdman of Alcatraz," died Saturday. He was 72.

Frankenheimer died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of a stroke due to complications following spinal surgery, said his business manager, Patti Person.

Frankenheimer was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards in a career that spanned nearly five decades. His work ranged from social dramas to political thrillers, and included a highly regarded run of feature films in the 1960s, and a string of 152 live TV dramas in the '50s.

Frankenheimer made his name with "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), a dark conspiracy thriller about a Korean War brainwashing victim. The same year he made the stirring social drama "Birdman of Alcatraz," starring Burt Lancaster as a prisoner who becomes an expert on birds.

Two years later came another classic film of political suspense, "Seven Days in May," which starred Lancaster as a renegade general planning a coup.

Frankenheimer "made the template" for political thrillers, Mancuso's son, the producer Frank Mancuso Jr., once said.

Other films included "All Fall Down," "Seconds," "Black Sunday" and "The Train." His most recent, "Path to War," premiered on HBO in May.

"John's passion for filmmaking, and his appetite for life, were without equal," Directors Guild of America President Martha Coolidge said in a statement. "He was one of those rarest of people who, simply put, can never be replaced."

"Full bore. You gotta give it everything. You just got to give it everything," Frankenheimer said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press. "And sometimes that's not even enough."

A native New Yorker, Frankenheimer got his first taste of directing movies while in the Air Force stationed in Burbank. He worked on some documentaries, and in 1953 walked into the CBS office in New York and convinced network officials to give him a chance as an assistant director.

Frankenheimer moved from weather and news programming to television shows. His early credits included 42 episodes of the "Playhouse '90" anthology series and his success with political thrillers followed. As producer Frank Mancuso Jr. once put it, "He made the template" for such movies.

In the 1970s, Frankenheimer ran into some personal difficulties, including a drinking problem, which followed the assassination of close friend Robert F. Kennedy.

Kennedy was staying at Frankenheimer's house, and Frankenheimer drove him to the Ambassador Hotel the night he was killed in 1968.

Frankenheimer lost his touch, making such clunkers as "Prophecy," "The Challenge," "Dead-Bang" and "Year of the Gun." Job offers dried up in the '80s and he had to work to re-establish himself.

In the 1990s, Frankenheimer returned to television and found new success directing movies for HBO. He won a string of Emmys starting in 1993 for "Against the Wall," followed by "The Burning Season," "Andersonville" and "George Wallace."

Frankenheimer is expected to be inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in November.

Frankenheimer spoke fluent French, cooked French food and tooled around Los Angeles in a Mercedes-Benz pumped up to 750 horsepower. He assembled miniature cars which he displayed in glass cases at his Beverly Hills home.