Larry Peerce

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Lawrence Larry Peerce born April 19 1930 is an American film and TV director whose work includes the theatrical feature Goodbye Columbus the early rock and roll concert film The Big TNT Show One Potato Two Potato 1964 The Other Side of the Mountain 1975 and Oscar nominee TwoMinute Warning 1976 The son of operatic tenor Jan Peerce and talent agent Alice Kalmanowitz Peerce Larry Peerce was born in The Bronx New York City New York He attended the University of North Carolina He made his directing debut with One Potato Two Potato released in 1964 by the distributor Cinema V The groundbreaking drama about an interracial marriage between a white divorcee played by Barbara Barrie who won the Best Actress award at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival for the role and an AfricanAmerican office worker Bernie Hamilton was the first US movie to portray such an interracial relationship Peerce went on to direct several episodes of the Western television series Branded and the campy superhero series Batman among other shows before directing the early rock and roll concert film The Big TNT Show released in 1966 by American International Pictures and featuring such performers as The Byrds Ray Charles Bo Diddley Donovan The Lovin Spoonful The Ronettes and The Ike Tina Turner Revue Following more TV Peerce returned to film in 1967 with The Mystery of the Chinese Junk and The Incident the latter of which starred Martin Sheen and Tony Musante He followed this with the acclaimed Goodbye Columbus an adaptation of the Philip Roth novel The movie earned Peerce a DGA Award nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures and screenwriter Arnold Schulman an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Peerces subsequent theatrical features included The Sporting Club A Separate Peace Ash Wednesday and The Other Side of the Mountain Peerces work is frequently viewed as part of the expressive sentimental directorial style with a particular focus on comingofage stories