Frank Árpád Darabont (born Ferenc Árpád Darabont, January 28, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career, he was primarily a screenwriter for such horror films as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), The Blob (1988) and The Fly II (1989). As a director, he is known for his film adaptations of Stephen King novellas and novels, such as The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999), and The Mist (2007). Darabont also developed and executive-produced the first season and first half of the second season of the AMC horror series The Walking Dead (2010–2011). Early life Darabont was born in a refugee camp in 1959 in Montbéliard, France. His parents had fled Hungary for France after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, bringing his five brothers and four sisters, and three cousins. When Darabont was still an infant, his family immigrated to the United States, settling in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles at age five. Darabont was inspired in his youth to pursue a career in film after seeing the George Lucas film THX 1138. Darabont graduated from Hollywood High School in 1977 and did not attend college. His first job after finishing school was working at the famed Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. He served at the concession stand and as an usher, and was grateful for the perk of getting to watch numerous films for free. He claims he developed his writing skills from "endless hours" of writing at a desk on a typewriter in his free time, and from his childhood friend Cody Hills. Career Early works Darabont became involved in filmmaking by becoming a production assistant on such films as Hell Night, The Seduction, and Trancers. The first film he wrote and directed was a short work adapted from Stephen King's story "The Woman in the Room". This film was one of the first "Dollar Babies" and made the semi-finalist list for Academy Award consideration in 1983. Although Darabont was not happy with how the short turned out, this effort resulted in a close association with King, who granted him the "handshake deal" rights to another of his shorter works, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from the collection Different Seasons. Darabont sold his first screenplay titled Black Cat Run in 1986, but it was not