HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR RICHARD SARAFIAN DIES AT 83
By MassisPost
Updated: September 23, 2013
LOS ANGELES – Famous director Richard Sarafian died Wednesday night
at age 83 in Southern California.
Sarafian was best known for his film Vanishing Point, a story about
an auto pursuit through the Nevada desert involving a Vietnam veteran
and his drug dealer.
He directed numerous films and, earlier in his career, TV shows that
included episodes of “Gunsmoke,” “The Twilight Zone” and “Batman.” He
also acted, appearing as hitman Vinnie in the Warren Beatty satire
“Bulworth” and gangster Jack Dragna in Beatty’s “Bugsy.”
In “Dr. Doolittle 2,” he did a comic turn as the voice of the God
Beaver, a don of the dam who ran the forest like a Corleone with
buck teeth.
The Associated Press reports that Sarafian died at a Santa Monica
hospital on Wednesday after suffering from pneumonia. He contracted
it while recovering from a fall.
“I had absolutely no idea that this thing would survive all these
years,” Sarafian said about the 1971 hit film.
Born April 28, 1930, in New York City, Richard Caspar Sarafian was
the son of Armenian immigrants. He attended New York University but
“was a rotten student, drinking and carousing,” he told the Armenian
Reporter in 2008. “To make life easier, I took a two-point course in
writing and directing pictures. I got an A!”
Sarafian was married to Helen Joan Altman who died two years ago,
after divorcing Sarafian and later remarrying him.
Sarafian is survived by five children, sons Deren, Damon, Richard
Jr., Tedi, and his daughter Catherine, all of whom work in the film
industry.
Sarafian was an iconic influence on film and was remembered by
directors like Quentin Tarantino.