From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Thomas S Tom Gries 20 December 1922 Chicago Illinois 3 January 1977 Pacific Palisades California was an American TV and film director writer and producer Educated at the Loyola Academy and Georgetown University Gries began working in TV in the 1950s as a writer and director on such programmes as BroncoRat Patrol Wanted Dead or Alive The Westerner The Rifleman East SideWest Side Mission Impossible Route 66 Batman and I Spy He won Emmy Awards for his direction on East SideWest Side in 1964 and The Glass House in 1972 In the cinema Gries directed some lowbudget movies in the 1950s before concentrating his efforts more on TV In the late 1960s he wrote and directed what is generally acknowledged to be his greatest work in either medium the western Will Penny which starred Charlton Heston and was released in 1968 It was based on an episode of the TV series The Westerner that Gries wrote and directed in 1960 entitled Line Camp Gries subsequently made two other films with Heston the much less successful Number One and The Hawaiians and directed several other films with other high profile actors such as Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson into the 1970s though they failed to reach the critical approval that Will Penny received The most successful of his later works was Helter Skelter made in 1976 which was a TV film based on the notorious Charles Manson Family During postproduction on his final film The Greatest 1977 a biography on boxer Muhammed Ali in which Ali also played himself Tom Gries collapsed and died of a heart attack while playing tennis He was 54 years old He is the father of actordirector Jon Gries who appeared under the name Jon Francis in Will Penny as a child actor Description above from the Wikipedia article Tom Gries licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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