Joseph Sargent

Joseph Sargent was an American director, producer, and actor of film and television. His directing career spanned nearly 50 years, between 1959 and 2008, and over 90 productions. He was a four-time Primetime Emmy Award and Directors Guild of America Award recipient.
Sargent's directing credits included the science-fiction film Colossus: The Forbin Project, the Burt Reynolds action film White Lightning, the thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, the biopic MacArthur starring Gregory Peck, and the horror anthology Nightmares ''.'' On television, he was known as a prolific director of telefilms and miniseries, winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series or Movie three times.
He was the father of voice actress Lia Sargent.

Early life

Sargent was born Giuseppe Danielle Sorgente in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Italian parents Maria and Domenico Sorgente. Sargent served in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Career

Sargent began his career as an actor, appearing in numerous films and television programs.
He appeared in an uncredited role as a soldier in the film From Here to Eternity where he also met his first wife Mary Carver on the set. In the mid 1950s Sargent switched to directing; over the next 15 years his directing credits would include episodes of television series Lassie, The Invaders, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver".
He appeared in the Western series Gunsmoke, once in 1957 as a man, turned drunk, who lost his drive to live, in the episode "Skid Row" ; then again as a drunk cowboy who gets killed in The Longbranch Saloon in the 1959 episode "There Never Was A Horse".
In 1969, he directed his first feature, the science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project. In 1971, he was hired to direct Buck and the Preacher but, after a few days of shooting, was replaced by Sidney Poitier, who cited creative differences. The next year, however, he directed The Man, starring James Earl Jones, which was begun as a television movie.
He alternated between television movies and feature films during the 1970s. Sargent's directorial work from this period includes The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, the TV movies Hustling with Lee Remick and Jill Clayburgh, Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring with Sally Field, and Tribes with Jan-Michael Vincent and Darren McGavin, as well as international award-winning ABC film The Night That Panicked America. In 1974, he won his first Directors Guild of America Award for The Marcus-Nelson Murders, which was the TV movie pilot for the Kojak series.
In the 1980s, Sargent directed the mini-series Manions of America, which featured Pierce Brosnan, and Space. In 1987 he directed Jaws: The Revenge, the third sequel to Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic. The film received entirely negative reviews. Roger Ebert called his directing of the climactic sequence "incompetent," and he was nominated for Worst Director in the 1987 Golden Raspberry Awards.
He concentrated on TV movies after Jaws: The Revenge, including The Karen Carpenter Story, The Long Island Incident, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and the 2007 remake of the Sally Field docudrama Sybil.
Joseph Sargent and his wife Carolyn Nelson Sargent laid the groundwork for Deaf West Theatre.
Sargent spent time as the Senior Filmmaker-in-Residence for the Directing program at the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles.

Death

Sargent died of complications from heart disease at his home in Malibu, California, on December 22, 2014. He was 89.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

Sargent was nominated for several Emmy awards, winning four. Early in his career, he won a Directors Guild of America Award for the Kojak pilot. Sargent was nominated for eight DGA awards for television movies, more than any other director in this category.

Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
1971	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Drama - A Single Program	Tribes	Nomitated
1973	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Drama - A Single Program	The Marcus-Nelson Murders	Won
1973	Directors Guild of America Award	Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film	The Marcus-Nelson Murders	Won
1980	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing in a Limited Series or a Special	Amber Waves	Nomitated
1984	Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival	Golden Raven	Nightmares	Won
1986	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing in a Miniseries or Special	Love Is Never Silent	Won
1988	Razzie Award	Worst Picture	Jaws: The Revenge	Nomitated
1988	Razzie Award	Worst Director	Jaws: The Revenge	Nomitated
1990	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing in a Miniseries or Special	Caroline?	Won
1992	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Miniseries or Special	Miss Rose White	Won
1995	Directors Guild of America Award	Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film	World War II: When Lions Roared	Nomitated
1998	Directors Guild of America Award	Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film	Miss Evers' Boys	Nomitated
1999	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or Movie	A Lesson Before Dying	Nomitated
2001	Directors Guild of America Award	Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film	For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story	Nomitated
2004	Directors Guild of America Award	Outstanding Directing in a Television Film	Something the Lord Made	Won
2004	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special	Something the Lord Made	Nomitated
2005	Directors Guild of America Award	Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film	Warm Springs	Won
2005	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special	Warm Springs	Nomitated