Blake Edwards - Career

Career

In the 1954-1955 television season, Edwards joined with Richard Quine to create Mickey Rooney's first television series, The Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan, a sitcom about a young studio page trying to become a serious actor. Edwards' hard-boiled private detective scripts for Richard Diamond, Private Detective became NBC's answer to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, reflecting Edwards's unique humor. Edwards also created, wrote and directed the 1959 TV series Peter Gunn, with music by Henry Mancini. In the same year Edwards produced, with Mancini's musical theme, Mr. Lucky, an adventure series on CBS starring John Vivyan and Ross Martin. Mancini's association with Edwards continued in his film work, significantly contributing to their success.

Operation Petticoat (1959)

Operation Petticoat was Edwards' first big-budget movie as a director. The film, which starred Tony Curtis and Cary Grant, became the "greatest box-office success of the decade for Universal ," and made Edwards a recognized director.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Breakfast at Tiffany's, based on the novel by Truman Capote, is credited with establishing him as a "cult figure" with many critics. Andrew Sarris called it the "directorial surprise of 1961," and it became a "romantic touchstone" for college students in the early 1960s.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

Days of Wine and Roses, a dark psychological film about the effects of alcoholism on a previously happy marriage, starred Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. It has been described as "perhaps the most unsparing tract against drink that Hollywood has yet produced, more pessimistic than Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend." The film gave another major boost to Edwards' reputation as an important director.

Edwards' most popular films were comedies, the melodrama Days of Wine and Roses being a notable exception. His most dynamic and successful collaboration was with Peter Sellers in six of the movies in the Pink Panther series. Five of the those involved Edwards and Sellers in original material, while Trail of the Pink Panther, made after Sellers died in 1980, was made up of unused material from The Pink Panther Strikes Again. He also worked with Sellers on the film The Party. Edwards later directed the comedy film 10 with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek.

Darling Lili (1969)

Darling Lili, starring Julie Andrews, is considered by many followers of Edwards' film as "the director's masterpiece." According to critic George Morris, "it synthesizes every major Edwards theme: the disappearance of gallantry and honor, the tension between appearances and reality and the emotional, spiritual, moral, and psychological disorder" in such a world. Edwards used difficult cinematography techniques, including long-shot zooms, tracking, and focus distortion, to great effect.

However, the film failed badly at the box office. At a cost of $17 million to make, few people went to see it, and the few who did weren't impressed. It brought Paramount Pictures to "the verge of financial collapse," and became an example of "self-indulgent extravagance" in filmmaking "that was ruining Hollywood."

In 2004, Edwards received an Honorary Academy Award for cumulative achievements over the course of his film career.