Arthur Marks

Writer/director/producer Arthur Marks was born on August 2, 1927 in Los Angeles, California. His grandparents acted in silent pictures and his father, Dave Marks, was an assistant director and production manager at MGM whose credits include The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Easter Parade (1948). Arthur began his film career as a young boy working as both an extra and bit actor in movies in the 1930s. He attended the University of Southern California and got a job working in the production department at MGM. However, it was in the 1950s that his career really took off: He was an assistant director for the TV shows Broken Arrow (1956), The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955) and Treasury Men in Action (1950) and worked on the immensely popular Perry Mason (1957) TV series as both a producer and director. He eventually began directing enjoyably trashy low-budget drive-in exploitation features in the 1970s; he made his theatrical film debut with the 1970 movie Togetherness (1970). He truly hit his stride, though, with several hugely entertaining blaxploitation outings: The rousing crime thriller Detroit 9000 (1973) (this particular picture was re-released in theaters in 1998 by Quentin Tarantino), the delightfully breezy Pam Grier vehicle Friday Foster (1975), the bang-up Fred Williamson action flick Bucktown (1975), the atmospheric horror winner J.D.'s Revenge (1976), and the amusingly goofy comedy The Monkey Hu$tle (1976). His other films as director include the gritty film noir Bonnie's Kids (1972), the sleazy serial killer opus The Roommates (1973), and the silly soft-core romp Class of '74 (1972). In addition, he served as production manager on The Centerfold Girls (1974) and Wonder Women (1973). He often produced the films he directed. Marks ran the independent outfit General Film Corp. in the 1970s, which picked up pictures like William Girdler's The Get-Man (1974) and the notorious cult exploitation gem The Candy Snatchers (1973) for theatrical distribution. Outside of his movie work, he has directed episodes of such TV shows as The Dukes of Hazzard (1979), Starsky and Hutch (1975) and I Spy (1965) He and his wife Phyllis Marie Lehman had four children; his sons Beau Marks and Paul Marks are both successful film and television producers. Marks died at age 92 at his home in Woodland Hills, California on November 13, 2019.