Ferde Grofé Jr.

Born in Passaic, New Jersey on July 4th 1930, Ferde Grofe Jr. is the son of arranger and composer Ferde Grofe, a fixture is popular orchestral music from the 1920s - 1950's. Trained as an actor, he moved into filmmaking via a period as Columbia Studios Clover Productions as an assistant to legendary producer Sam Katzman, followed by his own forays into indie filmmaking first with AIP, then with his longtime collaborator George Montgomery in the Philippines. His highly regarded breakout movies are Fortress of the Dead (1965) and Warkill (1968). In 1969 he filmed The Proud and the Damned (1972) in Colombia, and in 1970 produced the disappointing Ride the Tiger (1970) for CBS. In 1971 he filmed the cult movie The Day of the Wolves (1971) in Lake Havasu, Arizona, his one and only feature film shot on the continental US. Following a sabbatical period in Colombia he returned to the States in the mid-1970's to make Sentimental Journey (1976), a documentary short about the retirement of the Douglas DC-3 airplane, featuring and narrated by Hollywood star Jimmy Stewart, a project he notes as the high point of his career. Two more movies made in the Philippines, Hell Raiders (1988) and a horror film, The Third Hand (1988) would round out his feature film production career. He would later segue into documentary television show production followed by retirement to the Pacific Northwest.