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Alan Joseph Arkin (born January 2nd, 1934) is a Scottish-American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, stunt coordinator, and film editor, mainly in stage, film and television works. Arkin holds the record for being the most Oscar-nominated person in history. He was brought on by director Elia Kazan in an early uncredited role in 1946's The Yearling. Impressed with his audition for the film, Kazan brought then-15 year old Arkin in the role of "The Kid" in 1949's Stagecoach. In the film, he starred alongside John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Walter Brennan, and Trevor Howard. The film garnered Arkin his first Academy-Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Arkin continued co-starring in successful films like 1950's The Men, directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Marlon Brando, in his first feature role, alongside Teresa Wright. Arkin's gain into spotlight began when he played intellectually-disabled Arnie Joad in 1952's The Grapes of Wrath, where he got his second nomination, and his first Best Actor nomination, becoming the second youngest actor to be nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Career

After graduating from Harvard University in 1953, at age 19, Arkin began filming as a director on his 1956 directorial debut with Paramount Pictures' Ace in the Hole. The film was about a news reporter (played by William Holden) on a quest for wealth during the Southern Carolina boom during the 1920s Great Depression. Ace in the Hole was favored with critical and commercial success, now recognized as one of the greatest action films ever made, earning 10 Academy-Award nominations including Arkin's first Best Picture nomination, with William Holden winning Best Actor and Barbara Stanwyck winning for Best Actress. The film also won Academy Awards for Margaret Rutherford, Verna Fields, and Haskell Wexler's Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing, and Best Cinematography awards, respectively.

Arkin, then went on to film Walking Tall, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starting Burt Lancaster. The film was a critical success but slightly underperformed at the box office. Nonetheless, the film garnered Arkin his second Best Actor nomination, his overall 5th nomination, with Burt Lancaster winning Best Actor.

Fellowship of the Prisoners

After the major success of Ace in the Hole, In 1957, Arkin pitched to Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, a film about a screenwriter who is sentenced to life in a State Penitentiary prison for the murders of five Anti-communist board members, despite his claims of innocence. Over the following decades, he befriends a group of innocent Irish, American and English prisoners, and they become instrumental in a breakout from prison to clear their names whilst trying to discover who were involved in the murder of the members. A group of Metro Goldwyn Mayer officials, though the pitch was successful, told staff executives that they did not trust Arkin as a leading man. Some executives looked for Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift, and Burt Lancaster, Arkin's previous co-star. Lancaster helped Arkin convince Metro Goldwyn Mayer executives to allow the film to be made with Arkin directing and starring in the lead role. Metro Goldwyn Mayer eventually agreed to cast Arkin, as well as write the screenplay, cast, and allow Arkin for full creative control over the film. Fellowship of the Prisoners released in theaters on March 20th, 1959 to worldwide acclaim, praising the film for its innovate screenplay, cinematography, outstanding performances, and overall presentation, also with helping end the Communist witch-hunts by exploring mature themes on Communism, and the Hollywood blacklists that occurred during that era. The film earned 9 Academy-Award nominations including Best Picture (losing to Ben Hur), with Judi Dench winning her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film is now considered to be one of the most influential and aspiring films ever made and has been a significant influence to the American New Hollywood Movement, and filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, and Sergio Leone.

Bond, The Fugitive Kind, Whiplash, and Semi-Retirement

In 1958, Arkin auditioned for the role of Ian Fleming's famous spy James Bond. When the rights were given to producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, they thought Arkin lacked the humor and charm the James Bond character need to be appropriately adapted into silver screens. They also thought Arkin was too young for the role. Arkin contributed to the storyboards and material from Fleming's early novels. Arkin gave Broccoli and Saltzman his material which would eventually be used for the first three Bond films, Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger. After the success of Fellowship of the Prisoners, Arkin would disband from Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios after many fallouts and arguments over the production of the film and went to Columbia Pictures to direct the adaptation of Dalton Trumbo's novel and stage production The Fugitive Kind. Arkin suggested that film newcomer Elvis Presley should take the lead role because Presley matched the character's tone, physical expression and feel of Paul Rossen, an ex-GI desperate to escape a brutal prison camp to reach his father (Columbia executives cast Jackie Gleason in the role). Complications arose from the beginning of the production when Columbia executives refused to let Arkin use his team associates like his preferred cinematographer Haskell Wexler. After filming ended, his preferred editor Verna Fields, had completed most of the filmed footage, featuring rapid-style sound and action sequences previously implemented in Arkin's previous films. Columbia executives disliked the edited footage Fields worked on, and had their editors recut the footage so it would be fit for theaters. Columbia executives tampered with the edited footage frequently, that Arkin and Fields were infuriated with the footage they were given, with Fields threatening legal action if her name was not removed from the opening credits. This film is the only film to not have a screenplay written by Arkin, instead wrote by Dalton Trumbo, the novel's original author, and who at the time was blacklisted during the Communist blacklisting that took place around the time of filming. Arkin included Trumbo's name in the opening credits, effectively ending the blacklisting, and Paul Osborn. The Fugitive Kind, though not as favored as Arkin's previous films, was still a critical and commercial success when it opened to theaters on December 13th, 1961. The film earned 8 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Arkin's second Best Director nomination (Arkin was also nominated for Best Actor), Gleason and Maureen Stapleton were nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, and Elvis Presley won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film was known gained a cult following and is now regarded as one of the greatest action films ever made. In 1998, Arkin, finally satisfied with the completed film, worked with Sony Pictures Entertainment to release a restored director's version with Fields's original editing work, but still retaining most of the theatrical footage.

After completing the filming of The Fugitive Kind, Arkin rejoined with Metro Goldwyn Mayer executives to develop a self effort picture. Metro Goldwyn Mayer executives were flustered at the idea of a self-effort released to mainstream audiences. Arkin pitched the story of an ambitious music student and jazz drummer (played by Arkin), who is pushed to his limit by his abusive instructor (also played by Arkin). Arkin was determined to convince Metro Goldwyn Mayer to greenlight the film, gaining 41 pounds of muscle and shaving his head so he could film the scenes with abusive instructor Terence Flecther first. He also hired body doubles Tony Greenwood and Bruce Weissman to fill in for Flecther's body frame and apply additional makeup to match Arkin's head frame. To match its grim and dirty atmosphere, Arkin and Haskell Wexler modified three light speed lenses developed by Zeiss for later use by NASA for the Apollo Moon Landing, even solving the movement of combinatorial mathematics problems, so they were able to capture as much light and movement as possible. He reunited with Fields and Wexler to make sure the technical aspects of the film appeared seamless to audiences. Soon after, Metro Goldwyn Mayer allowed Arkin to turn 81 pages in the script to a 176 page script, culminating into a 143-minute film. Despite Arkin being satisfied with the original cut of the film, it was shown to audiences three months after filming completed in September 1962. The test audiences despised the original version of the film, describing it as "an abominate, disrespectful and disdainful", prompting Metro Goldwyn Mayer to force Arkin to cut down to film by removing all the swear words including the 192 "F" words, and film new scenes with less threatening dialogue so it would be appropriate enough to release into theaters. The negative response to the first version of the film forced Arkin to film completely new scenes with similar but less intimidating scenes. This version, with the scenes completed on January 16th, 1963, was released theatrically to audiences on August 2nd, 1963. Arkin felt dissatisfied with the theatrical film, stating "without its forbidding and grim demeanor and discourse, the film lost its character and atmosphere. However, when the 1963 theatrical version released in theaters, critics and audiences evaluated it as "a masterful picture" featuring a "brilliant performance by Arkin, portraying two complex minds". Critics also praised its innovate cinematography and film editing, with its quick cuts and longer takes, inspired a generation of directors who would make their own pictures during the New Hollywood Movement. The 1963 theatrical version received 7 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Arkin's third Best Director nomination, alongside his 5th Best Actor nomination. The film earned Academy Awards for Haskell Wexler and Verna Fields' elusive cinematography and editing, regarded by critics today as one of the most sumptuous and brilliantly crafted films in cinema history. In 1988, after the authorization for more adult and mature films, Metro Goldwyn Mayer called for Arkin to help restore the original version of the film for its 25th anniversary, retaining all of its swear words and its mature elements and sequences.

Stressed from the frequent filming and having to constant change certain elements of his movies, Arkin never directed another film, though he would continue to write screenplays, and semi-retired from acting on November 1963 to February 1964.

Coming Out of Retirement, The Sound of Music and On Her Majesty's Secret Service

In 1964, Arkin returned to acting and co-starred in the Robert Wise directed musical epic The Sound of Music (1965). The film made cinematic history, becoming the all-time top-grossing film, eclipsing Gone with the Wind. Arkin called working with Julie Andrews, and all aspects of making the film an amazing experience. He attended the 40th and 45th Anniversary cast reunions, provided commentary on the 2005 DVD release. and appeared with the full cast on The Oprah Winfrey Show on October 28, 2010. Arkin stated "it was a very well-made movie, and it's a family movie and we haven't seen a family movie, I don't think, on that scale for ages; He also said that he had "great memories" of making the movie.

Later in 1965, John Schlesinger casted Arkin as the lead role of an alcoholic MI6 agent in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1966). The film follows MI6 chief of staff Francis Seydor (played by Denholm Elliott) who plants Sergeant Colin Haggins (Anthony Hopkins, in his feature debut) as a spy within the London State Police; simultaneously, the MI6 also assign undercover state trooper Warren Brand (Alan Arkin) to infiltrate Seydor's crew. When both sides realize the situation, Brand and Haggins each attempt to discover the other's identity before they are found out. Upon release, On Her Majesty's Secret Service became the highest grossing film of 1966 and received favorable reviews, later reevaluating with praise of its darker tone, and is regarded as one of the last movies to release during the Hollywood Golden Age and transition into the New Hollywood movement of Cinema. The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Arkin's eighteenth Oscar nomination. The film won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Elliott), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Song for "The Last Song" by LuLu.

Arkin continued to work in supporting roles from Cool Hand Luke, Stuart Rosenberg's 1967 tale about Luke Jackson, a prisoner in a Florida prison camp who refuses to submit to the system of cruel and unjust treatment alongside his other inmates. Paul Newman plays the title role of Lucas "Luke" Jackson, and Arkin plays the cruel and brutish prison warden also known as "the Captain". For the film, Arkin earned his 19th Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, losing to his co-star George Kennedy as the role of Clarence "Dragline" Slidell for the same film.

Later in 1967, Arkin joined the cast for Ray Stark and Burt Schneider's independent road drama Radio Flyer (1968). Arkin co-starred alongside Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson, who play two bikers that travel through the American Southwest and South, and with the help of a small-time lawyer (played by Arkin), they carry out the proceedings from a cocaine deal. Directed by Hal Ashby, and written by Reynolds and Kristofferson, The film was released by Columbia Pictures on June 22nd, 1968, and received favorable praise. The success of Radio Flyer helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s. Critics described it as a "landmark counterculture film, and a "touchstone for a generation" that "captured the national imagination," Radio Flyer explored the societal landscape, issues, and tensions towards adolescents in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle. The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.