Michael pressman biography

All All. Sign In. Play trailer Frankie and Johnny Are Married The projects he has been privileged to choose have, notably, tended toward socially relevant subjects, a direction to which he gravitated naturally in light of his young family life with two dynamic parents impacted directly by the notorious McCarthy Blacklist.

A native of Manhattan, Pressman was born into a theatrical family. His mother, Sasha, a modern dancer, was an original member of Martha Graham's renowned first dance troupe. His father, David Pressman, was a well-known theatrical and television director who helped launch Boston University's distinguished school of theater and helmed Broadway plays, including The Disenchanted, Jason Robards' first Broadway appearance; and the original Actor's Studio Anthology Series in the late 's, for which he discovered and cast an unknown Grace Kelly.

David Pressman's pioneer career in live television in the early 's was suddenly derailed when he was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy during his blacklisting of alleged communist sympathizers. Unable to work in television for close to 15 years, he survived the blacklist by teaching. When the Blacklist itself derailed in the early 's, he began working regularly in television directing soap operas.

He directed the popular One Life to Live for twenty-eight years, and for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and ten Daytime Emmys, winning three times. Michael Pressman graduated from Manhattan's famed high school of Music and Art. He then went on to study drama at Carnegie-Mellon University with classmates of the likes of Ted Danson.

Michael Pressman is an American film and television producer and director.

He subsequently moved to Los Angeles where he received his B. Pressman's interest in filmmaking was directly motivated, if not provoked, by his family's persecution for their early political sympathies, not unlike others of his era, including those in entertainment Dalton Trumbo, et al and in sciences Robert Oppenheimer. It led him to pursue projects, when professionally and financially viable to do so, that were politically, socially and racially compatible with his personal perspectives.

Of course, young filmmakers must make a living, and Pressman knew he needed to establish his bona fides first.