Director Paul Wendkos Passes Away at 84

by Blaine Metzgar | November 13, 2009 at 08:26 pm

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Acclaimed director Paul Wendkos passed away at the age of 84. Know for such films as Gidget and Guns of the Magnificent Seven as well as numerous television shows Wendkos ultimately specialized in made-for-TV movies from 1970 to his retirement in 1999.

Director Paul Wendkos, whose career spanned 50 years and covered some 100 films and television shows including the 1959 surf movie "Gidget," has died due to a lung infection that followed a stroke. He was 84.

Family representative C. Christie Craig said Wendkos died on Thursday in Malibu, California.

Wendkos was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 20, 1925 eventually serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II and attending Columbia University and The New School for Social Research where he studied film history and aesthetics. In 1953 Wendkos married his first wife, Ruth Burnat, with whom he had a son, Jordan Elkan Wendkos. Burnat passed away in 1978 and Wendkos went on to marry former NBC television producer Lin Bolen.

He is survived by Bolen, Jordan, one grand-daughter, and nieces and nephews.