QUICK FACTS
Activities Director , Screenwriter , Producer more
Real name Brian Russell DePalma
Nationality USA
Birth September 11, 1940 (Newark, New Jersey – USA)
BIOGRAPHY
Brian Russell De Palma is an American director and screenwriter, born on September 11, 1940, in Newark, New Jersey. The son of Anthony Federico De Palma and Vivienne Muti, an orthopedic surgeon and a homemaker, Brian grew up in Philadelphia and New Hampshire. As a young man he became interested in physics, so he studied Physics at Columbia University, although later he fell in love with cinema. He studied cinematography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where he became the school’s first male student. After standing out with several short films filmed with a super 16 camera purchased at a pawn shop, Brian teamed up with a teacher and a student, who contributed one hundred thousand dollars, to make the feature film The Wedding Party (1969), an experimental and amateur film . , starring then-unknowns Jull Clayburgh and Robert De Niro. He continued seeking to become an experimental author, wishing to be the American Jean-Luc Godard, with the film Hello Mom (1970), for which he took to the streets to record his material. Hired by Warner Bros., he failed in the first opportunity they offered him: the film Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972), however, he succeeded in the second attempt with Sisters (1973) and The Phantom of the Paradise (1974). After these productions, came his first great works and successes with Obsession (1976), Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), for which he would be nominated for best director; Blow Out (1981) and, especially, with the remake of the film Cut Face (1983), one of the most influential films of his career, which starred the then-rising actor, Al Pacino. A great admirer of Hitchcock, De Palma has in his long career films such as The Untouchables (1987), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Trapped by His Past (1993), Mission Impossible (1996), Snake Eyes (1998), Mission to Mars (2000), Femme fatale (2002), The black dahlia (2006), among others. He has also directed several music videos, including Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark .
