Samuel Fuller
Date of birth: 1912-08-12
Place of birth: Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Known for: Directing
Also known as: Sam Fuller, 사무엘 풀러, 새뮤얼 풀러
Biography
Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American screenwriter, novelist and film director known for low-budget genre movies with controversial themes. He was born Samuel Michael Fuller in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin Rabinovitch, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, and Rebecca Baum, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. After immigrating to America, the family's surname was changed from Rabinovitch to "Fuller" possibly by inspiration of a Doctor who arrived in America on the Mayflower. At the age of 12, he began working in journalism as a newspaper copyboy. He became a crime reporter in New York City at age 17, working for the New York Evening Graphic. He broke the story of Jeanne Eagels' death. He wrote pulp novels and screenplays from the mid-1930s onwards. Fuller also became a screenplay ghostwriter but would never tell interviewers which screenplays that he ghost-wrote explaining "that's what a ghost writer is for". During World War II, Fuller joined the United States Army infantry. He was assigned to the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, and saw heavy fighting. He was involved in landings in Africa, Sicily, and Normandy and also saw action in Belgium and Czechoslovakia. In 1945 he was present at the liberation of the German concentration camp at Falkenau and shot 16 mm footage which was used later in the documentary Falkenau: The Impossible. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. Fuller used his wartime experiences as material in his films, especially in The Big Red One (1980), a nickname of the 1st Infantry Division. After his controversial film "White Dog" was shelved by Paramount pictures, Fuller moved to France, and never directed another American film. Fuller eventually returned to America. He died of natural causes in his California home. In November 1997, the Directors Guild held a three hour memorial in his honor, hosted by Curtis Hanson, his long time friend and co-writer on White Dog. He was survived by his wife Christa and daughter Samantha.
Movie Credits
Pierrot le Fou
1965-11-05
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a
Un Américain en Normandie
1994-01-01
Filmmaker Samuel Fuller tells the story of Corporal Samuel Fuller's landing on Omaha Beach on June 6
The State of Things
1982-03-22
On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman
The American Friend
1977-06-24
Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture fra
A Return to Salem's Lot
1987-09-11
Anthropologist Joe Weber takes his son on a trip to the New England town of Salem's Lot, unaware of
La Vie de Bohème
1992-02-27
Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no vis
The End of Violence
1997-09-12
In Hollywood, the lives of a successful film producer, his wife, a police detective and a surveillan
The Big Red One
1980-05-28
A veteran sergeant of World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the surviv
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made
1994-03-25
In 1993, Sam Fuller takes Jim Jarmusch on a trip into Brazil's Mato Grosso, up the River Araguaia to
The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera
1996-06-28
In a documentary about Samuel Fuller, the spectator gets different impressions about the Hollywood d
Anything for John
1993-09-06
An intimate portrait of actor-writer-director John Cassavetes and a loving tribute to his genius for
Report from Hollywood
1985-01-01
“It may be worse than Portugal,” observes cinematographer Henri Alekan about a Los Angeles film lab
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction
2005-05-03
A re-working, re-editing, and restructuring of Sam Fuller's The Big Red One bringing it closer as or
Brigitte and Brigitte
1966-12-17
Episodes in the lives of two country girls at school in Paris and their opinions.
A Fuller Life
2013-08-28
Friends and admirers of iconoclastic film director Sam Fuller read from his memoirs in this unconven
The Madonna and the Dragon
1990-09-01
Exposé of two news photographers covering the People's Revolution in the Philippines.
White Dog
1982-07-07
A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that’s been raised to kill black people.
Mer de Chine: Le pays pour mémoire
1988-09-08
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2002-07-02
Samuel Fuller discusses his career as a filmmaker, illustrated by plenty of clips.
The Real Glory: Reconstructing 'The Big Red One'
2005-05-03
Documentary about the efforts to reconstruct Sam Fuller's The Big Red One closer to the film Fuller
Falkenau, the Impossible
1988-10-05
Documentary stems from 1945, when infantryman Sam Fuller, member of the U.S. Army's "Big Red One," h
Helsinki Napoli All Night Long
1987-11-13
Alex is a Finnish taxi driver in Berlin. One evening pits two men feel comfortable in his taxi with
Golem: The Petrified Garden
1993-01-01
Danny Cornish, a sort of stateless man who arranges art exhibits, is called from Tel Aviv to Paris w
House of Bamboo
1955-07-01
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a fo
Golem, the Spirit of Exile
1992-09-24
An allegory of the Golem, a Jewish mythical creature personifying displacement and exile, this film
The Young Nurses
1973-03-01
Sexy young nurses administer a special kind of therapy on their daily rounds as they battle a drug r
Where Is Musette?
1992-01-01
Documentary filmed on-set during the making of Aki Kaurismaki's "La vie de Boheme"
Thieves After Dark
1984-02-27
A crime story set in Paris about a Bonnie-and-Clyde couple -- how they got together and how they are
Street of No Return
1989-05-17
A rock star-turned-bum, his vocal chords severed at the height of his career for the love of a woman
Carmel
2009-07-12
Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitaï offers a look impressionist long history of armed conflict in their na
Shock Corridor
1992-01-01
Short 35mm experimental film featuring Sam Fuller.
Hammett
1982-06-09
Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with
The Last Movie
1971-09-29
After a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind, witnessing how f
A Travelling is a Moral Affair
1986-01-01
Slapstick of Another Kind
1982-12-09
A rich, beautiful couple give birth to deformed alien twins who, when their heads are together, are
Cinéastes de notre temps : Samuel Fuller
1967-09-30
Episode of the French television series about the work of American film director Samuel Fuller. (A 2
Sons
1990-01-01
A trio of stepbrothers accompany their paralysed father on a jaunt to Normandy where the old boy saw
Filmmakers in Action
2006-09-15
What is the state of cinema and what being a filmmaker means? What are the measures taken to protect
Hooray For Holyrood
1986-08-13
Scottish Television's film on the 40th Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1986, starring Robbi
Midnight Sun Film Festival
1987-01-01
The greatest film festival (anti)promotional short ever made which explains why Midnight Sun is a un
Nuits transparentes
2011-04-14
Strolling through France (Roanne, Nice and Carcassonne) with some excursions abroad (Munich, Montrea
Scene Missing
2012-01-01
The unfinished documentary about the making of Dennis Hopper's mostly unseen feature film The Last M
Sam Fuller & the Big Red One
1984-02-04
A documentary shot during the production of Samuel Fuller's film The Big Red One.
Cinématon
1978-12-20
Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest
Tell me Sam - Encounters with Sam Fuller
1989-01-09
The Bleeding Star
1987-01-01
An Englishman arrives in a remote French town near the coast to collect his broken-down car. What he
Motion and Emotion: The Films of Wim Wenders
1990-04-25
Though very polite and British, this feature-length documentary about German filmmaker Wim Wenders o
Sodankylä Forever
2010-08-05
The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arc
1941
1979-12-14
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads
Scott Joplin
1977-02-11
The life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
Somebody to Love
1994-09-27
Mercedes is a taxi dancer who wants to be an actress. She's involved with the married Harry, who con
Necro not(to b)e
2003-08-15
A montage dedicated to friends, actors and companions who have passed away over the years: from Fran
Films to Die For
2025-10-23