Julius "Jules" Dassin (December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, where he continued his career. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Directors' Guild. Dassin received a Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Du rififi chez les hommes. He was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen for his film Never on Sunday, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for his Broadway production of Illya Darling. Biography Early life Julius Dassin was born on December 18, 1911, to Bertha Dassin (née Vogel) and Samuel Dassin, a barber, in Middletown, Connecticut. His parents were both Jewish immigrants from Odessa, Russian empire (now Ukraine). Julius had seven siblings, including four brothers, Louis C., Benjamin, Irving and Edward; and three sisters. In 1915, when Julius was three years old, the Dassin family moved to Harlem, New York. He attended public grammar school where he received his first acting role in a school play. Julius was given a small part but when came time to speak his only line, he fainted due to stage fright. He also learned to play the piano at a young age. During his youth he attended Camp Kinderland, a left-wing Yiddish youth camp. Julius attended Morris High School in the Bronx. He started acting professionally in 1926, at the age of fourteen, with the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City. On October 13, 1929, newspaper columnist Mark Hellinger printed a story given to him by Dassin in the New York Daily News; nearly twenty years later, the two would work together in Hollywood. On July 11, 1933, Julius' older brother Louis was arrested in Meriden, Connecticut when he confessed to the theft of $12,000 from the Puritan Bank and Trust Company, where he worked as a teller and treasurer. On September 10, 1933, when he was 21 years old, Julius married Beatrice Launer, a concert violinist and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music. Beginning in 1934, Julius spent three years studying dramatic technique in Europe. He spent time in Italy, France, Spain,