Paul Aaron
1943 (81 год)After finishing his education at Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, he relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the show business. There, he became the Casting and New Programs Director for the Mark Taper Forum. (Named after the real estate developer Mark Taper, the Mark Taper forum in a 739-seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center designed by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of Downtown Los Angeles.)
Around at the same time, he founded an actor's workshop and directed several plays, including a critically acclaimed production of "The Three Penny Opera". He also worked in New York to direct the successful, off-Broadway rock musical hit, "Salvation", featuring, among others, Bette Midler, Barry Bostwick, and Joe Morton. He next moved to Broadway to direct the comedy "Paris Is Out", starring Sam Levene and Molly Picon, becoming the youngest director in Broadway history. After moving back to the West Coast, Aaron directed the revival of Paddy Chayefsky's, "The Tenth Man", starring Richard Dreyfuss. For his work, he was awarded the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Award as best director of the year.
In 1979, he directed his second feature film titled A Force of One, an action-thriller starring Chuck Norris and Jennifer O'Neill, with a screenplay by Academy Award-winner Ernest Tidyman. Also in 1979, he directed the hit NBC TV movie The Miracle Worker, starring Patty Duke, Melissa Gilbert, and Diana Muldaur. For his work, he was nominated for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Specials/Movies for TV/Actuality" at the 1980 Directors Guild of America Award. He also won the Director's prize from the Monte Carlo Film Festival, a Golden Globe nomination, and the Christopher Award. The film was nominated for four Emmys and won three, including one for Patty Duke as "Lead Actress in a Dramatic Special" and the Emmy as "Outstanding Dramatic Special" of the 1979-1980 season.
In 1981, he directed CBS' TV movie Thin Ice (1981), starring Kate Jackson and Lillian Gish.
In 1987, he directed the award-winning NBC television special, In Love and War (1987), the story of United States Navy vice admiral James Stockdale, which starred James Woods and Jane Alexander. The film was chosen by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the top five shows televised during the season.
In 1992, Aaron sold the management division of his production company, "Elsboy Entertainment," to concentrate on writing and producing. In 1993, he co-wrote and co-produced with the three-hour HBO mini-series titled Laurel Avenue. Pulitzer prize-winning critic Tom Shales of the Washington Post called it "a golden moment in the history of television".
The Miracle Worker
Paul Aaron
Patty Duke, Charles Siebert
The true story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, a gripping battle to overcome impossible obstacles and the struggle to communicate. As a young girl, Helen Keller is stricken with scarlet fever. The illness leaves her blind, mute, and deaf. Sealed off from the world, Helen cannot communicate with anyone, nor anyone with her. Often frustrated and desperate, Helen flies into uncontrollable rages and tantrums that terrify her hopeless family. The gifted teacher Annie Sullivan is summoned by the family to help the girl understand the world from which she is isolated, freeing Helen Keller from her internal prison forever. Television remake of the 1962 film which also starred Patty Duke in the role of Helen Keller.
The Miracle Worker
Save the Dog!
Paul Aaron
Cindy Williams, Tony Randall
Becky wants to become an actress. After an audition for a dog food ad she has best chances to get the part - but the day after her dog Petey becomes very ill. She has to come up with $700 until 5 pm for the operation - else Petey will be put to death! Lacking only $70, she takes a job as messenger. She needs only one delivery, but her car breaks down and bad luck delays her again, and again, and again...
Save the Dog!
Untamed Love
Paul Aaron
Ashlee Lauren, Cathy Lee Crosby
A badly abused girl of 6 is saved from having to be admitted to an institution by a dedicated Special Education teacher whose class she's been placed in until there is an opening in the hospital. In that time they form a strong bond and the child begins to heal. The teacher begins to think an institution is not what this child needs.
Untamed Love
In Love and War
Paul Aaron
Jane Alexander, James Woods
This movie is an account of US Navy Commander James Stockdale's 8 year imprisonment in North Vietnam. During his confinement in such camps as the infamous "Hanoi Hilton", Stockdale, among other senior officers, led a resistance group against the North Vietnamese, facing torture, isolation, and starvation in attempts to break their wills. Back in the US, Stockdale's wife, Sybil, begins working with other POW wives to try to get information on their husbands and to inform the world on their treatment.
In Love and War
Morgan Stewart's Coming Home
Paul Aaron, Alan Smithee
Jon Cryer, Viveka Davis
Eccentric 17-year-old Morgan Stewart (Cryer) can't seem to get his conservative parents to notice him - even though Morgan's been thrown out of 10 prep schools in 7 years! But when a sleazy campaign manager threatens Morgan's father's senatorial bid, Morgan comes home to clean up the mess... and creates hilarious havoc! by the time Morgan is finished, Washington politics will never be the same.
Morgan Stewart's Coming Home
Maxie
Paul Aaron
Glenn Close, Mandy Patinkin
When Nick and Jan move into their new apartment in San Francisco, the batty landlady upstairs tells them about a girl who used to live there in the 20's: a brash young party girl named Maxie, who died in a car crash the morning before her big audition for a Hollywood studio. The trouble is, Maxie, or rather her ghost, hasn't left the house. Worse, she can take over Jan's body. And the only way she's going to leave is if she gets that audition.
Maxie
Deadly Force
Paul Aaron
Wings Hauser, Joyce Ingalls
Stoney Cooper, a former Los Angeles police officer, is at a low point in his life. Kicked off the force because of his anti-authority attitude, he now ekes out a living as a freelancer in New York. All this changes when the daughter of an old friend is killed by serial killer terrorizing L.A. Although almost nobody in his old home town is happy to see him back, Cooper pledges to bring the killer to justice before any more innocent people die.
Deadly Force