Early Life
Friedkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Rae (née Green) and Louis Friedkin, a semi-professional softball player, merchant seaman, and men's clothing salesman. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. After seeing the movie Citizen Kane as a boy, Friedkin became fascinated with movies. He began working for WGN-TV immediately after high school. He eventually started his directorial career doing live television shows and documentaries, including The People vs. Paul Crump which won several awards and contributed to the commutation of Crump's death sentence.
Read more about this topic: William Friedkin
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.”
—Murray Bookchin (b. 1941)
“Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)