Fred Zinnemann and Meryl Streep. He directed 19 actors to Oscar nominations, including Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, Glynis Johns, Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Jason Robards, Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda, Gary Cooper and Maximilian Schell. Zinnemann was born in Rzeszów, the son of Anna (Feiwel) and Oskar Zinnemann, a doctor. His parents were Austrian-Jews. He had one younger brother. While growing up in Austria, he wanted to become a musician, but went on to graduate with a law degree from the University of Vienna in 1927. While studying law, he became drawn to films and convinced his parents to
Fred Zinnemann that they considered it an underrated achievement. Zinnemann blamed the film's critical and commercial failure for his retirement from filmmaking: "I'm not saying it was a good picture. But there was a degree of viciousness in the reviews. The pleasure some people took in tearing down the film really hurt." Zinnemann is often regarded as striking a blow against "ageism" in Hollywood. The apocryphal story goes that, in the 1980s, during a meeting with a young Hollywood executive, Zinnemann was surprised to find the executive didn't know who he was, despite having won four Academy Awards, and directing many of