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Gordon Hessler (born December 30, 1930 in Berlin, Germany) is a British film and television director, screenwriter, and producer.
Hessler began as a story editor for two seasons (1960 - 1962) on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series, then served as the show's associate producer from 1962 until its cancellation in 1965. He directed episodes of that series and several other shows (including Hawaii 5-0).
In 1969, he directed his debut feature film, The Oblong Box, starring Vincent Price. It was the first of three horror films Hessler would direct with the veteran horror star. Hessler's other films include The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) and The Girl in the Swing (1988) starring Meg Tilly, a critically acclaimed adaptation of Richard Adams's ghost story novel. The majority of Hessler's directorial work from the late-1970s to date has been in television.
Gordon Hessler was born in Germany, the son of a Danish mother and an English father. Educated in England, he moved to the United States while in his late teens and spent several years working in documentaries. At Universal, "I guess because I had an English accent", Hessler was placed under contract to Alfred Hitchcock and went to work on the master director's video series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, " climbing the ladder from story reader to associate producer and finally to producer in the series' final year. A novelette rejected for the show became the basis for "The Woman Who Wouldn't Die" (1965), Hessler's first feature film as director. When production of the AIP Poe series was shifted to Britain, Hessler collaborated with producer Louis M. Heyward and horror enthusiast/ screenwriter Christopher Wicking on three Poe films and on the sci-fi shocker "Scream and Scream Again". Carrying on in the fantasy field, he also directed the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion swashbuckler "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" and additional small- screen suspensers like the "Psycho"-inspired "Scream, Pretty Peggy" with Bette Davis.







