Celebrity Biographies
Joseph Pevney
Joseph Pevney is a prolific film and television director. His episodes from the legendary Star Trek series are highly regarded by fans of the galactic saga. Pevney, who had been retired since 1985, died on May 18, 2008 in Palm Desert, California.
Born on September 15, 1911 in New York, Joseph Pevney began as a singer and later became an actor after fighting in Europe during World War II. He was cast in several Broadway productions before making his film debut, playing a murderous pianist in Nocturne , a film noir starring George Raft . Pevney did not do badly as an interpreter, since he participated in Body and Soul , by Robert Rossen , The Street with No Name , by William Keighley and Thieves’ Market , by Jules Dassin .
He debuted as a filmmaker with The Blackmailer , another ‘film noir’ in which he made a cameo at the end, but that was his last screen appearance, because he decided to completely abandon acting and focus on directing. His musical drama Meet Danny , with Frank Sinatra and Shelley Winters , was well received , and it did not work at all badly Sinful Fury , where Tony Curtis plays a deaf boxer. In the 1950s he was very active, with titles such as Entre dos amores , La legión del desierto , El rey del circo , Atraco sin huellas , and above allThe Last Torpedo , a wonderful submarine war film, with Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine .
In the 1960s, the filmmaker devoted himself almost entirely to television. He directed episodes of the best series, such as The Fugitive , The Monster Family , Bewitched or The Virginian . But Pevney is especially remembered by ‘trekkies’, those who are passionate about Star Trek , because he directed the most appreciated episodes of the series. He singles out ‘Trouble with Tribbles’, in which the crew confronts small creatures, the ‘tribbles’, that reproduce with astonishing speed. For whoever writes these lines, it’s the best, because it was the first absolutely funny episode. Other fans prefer the legendary chapter ‘The City on the Edge Forever’, written by the science fiction novelistHarlan Ellison , and starring Joan Collins .
Pevney married actress Mitzi Green ( Santa Fe Trail ), with whom he had four children, and who died in 1969. After becoming a widow, he remarried Philippa, who also passed away, in 1996.