Humble Beginnings

Frank Darabont was born on January 28, 1959 in a French refugee camp soon after his parents fled Budapest after the unsuccessful 1956 Hungarian uprising. The Darabonts moved again to Chicago, where Frank spent much of his childhood before yet again relocating to Los Angeles. He graduated from Hollywood High School and secured his first job in the film industry as a production assistant for the 1981 low-budget horror film, Hell Night, starring Linda Blair. He found many small jobs working as production assistant and set designer for several years. For a timeline of all of his cinematic credits and accomplishments, click here. 

An Impressive Record

Frank is one of only six directors to have his first two feature length films receive nominations for Best Picture Academy Award. The first was The Shawshank Redemption (1994), which earned seven Oscar nominations including Best Adapted Screenplay from Stephen King’s short story, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The second was another adaptation of a Stephen King novel, The Green Mile (1999), which earned four nominations including Best Screenplay. He had many smaller roles in the film industry around that time, including reportedly offering assistance on the scripts of Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report. In 2001 co-authored the screenplay and directed The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey.

A Bright Future

Frank’s most recent work under his production company, Darkwoods Productions, was The Salton Sea (2002), written by Tony Gayton and directed by D.J. Caruso. He also served as executive producer of Collateral (2004), starring Tom Cruise. His current project is Fahrenheit 451, from Ray Bradbury’s science fiction novel of the same name, which has been announced with an expected release in 2005. To scout possible locations for the movie, Frank traveled back to his homeland of Hungary in September. He is also working on the screenplay for Mission Impossible III.