Quick Facts
Biography
Sidney J. Furie (born February 28, 1933) is a Canadian film director. Furie is perhaps best known for directing American Soldiers, The IPCRESS File, The Entity, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys, Gable and Lombard, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York and the Iron Eagle films.
Early life and education
Furie attended Vaughan Road Collegiate in Toronto in 1947.
Career
Also credited with co-creating NBC's offbeat legal drama Petrocelli, which ran from 1974 to 1976 (it was a spinoff from his 1970 film The Lawyer), he also directed Cliff Richard and The Shadows in The Young Ones (1961 film) and the 1964 musical Wonderful Life.
He was the subject of a full length biography by Daniel Kremer, Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films, published by The University Press of Kentucky in 2015. A feature documentary film called Sidney J. Furie: Fire Up the Carousel! was scheduled for release in 2017. Kremer discovered and preserved Furie's 1959 dramatic film A Cool Sound from Hell, a long-thought-lost piece of Canadian film history. A Cool Sound from Hell was originally released in England in 1960 as a double feature with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, but it was lost when it was misfiled as The Beat Generation, the name of another film from the same era. The restored film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2016.
Filmography
- A Dangerous Age (1958)
- A Cool Sound from Hell (1959)
- Dr. Blood's Coffin (1961)
- The Snake Woman (1961)
- During One Night (1961)
- The Young Ones (1961)
- Three on a Spree (1961)
- The Boys (1962)
- Wonderful Life (1964)
- The Leather Boys (1964)
- The Ipcress File (1965)
- The Appaloosa (1966)
- The Naked Runner (1967)
- The Lawyer (1970)
- Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
- Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
- Hit! (1973)
- Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975)
- Gable and Lombard (1976)
- The Boys in Company C (1977), also writer
- The Jazz Singer (1980), uncredited
- The Entity (1981)
- Purple Hearts (1984)
- Iron Eagle (1986), also writer
- Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
- Iron Eagle II (1988) also writer
- The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991), also writer
- Ladybugs (1992)
- Iron Eagle on the Attack (1995)
- Hollow Point (1996)
- Top of the World (1997)
- The Rage (1997)
- In Her Defense (1998)
- My 5 Wives (2000)
- Cord (2000)
- Under Heavy Fire (2001), TV film
- Partners in Action (2002)
- The Fraternity (2002)
- Global Heresy (2002)
- Detention (2003)
- Direct Action (2004), also writer
- American Soldiers (2005)
- The Veteran (2006), TV film
- The Four Horsemen (2008), straight to DVD
- Conduct Unbecoming (2011)
- The Dependables (2014)
Awards and nominations
- 1965 Nominated for Palme d'Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for Best Film of 1965 for The IPCRESS File.
- 1966 Won Bafta for Best British Film in Colour of 1965 for The IPCRESS File.
- 1980 Nominated Razzie Award for Worst Director with Richard Fleischer for The Jazz Singer.
- 2006 Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross as jazz legend Billie Holiday and directed by Furie in 1972 inducted into the Black Movie Awards Classic Cinema Hall of Fame.
- 2010 Directors Guild of Canada Lifetime Achievement Award.
- 2016 - The Toronto International Film Festival honoured Furie with a screening of his early film A Cool Sound from Hell.
- "Festival de Cannes: The Ipcress File". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
- "Tyler Perry to Host Film Life's 2006 Black Movie Awards - A Celebration of Black Cinema: Past, Present & Future, Premiering Wednesday, Oct. 18, on TNT". Timewarner.com. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
- Directors Guild of Canada 2010 DGC Awards. Retrieved August 13, 2010.
- Portrait: Sidney J. Furie, TIFF The Review, Aug 31, 2016 . Accessed November 13, 2016