Richard Owen Fleischer (; December 8, 1916 – March 25, 2006) was an American film director. His career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1940s, and lasting through the New Hollywood era, until the late 1980s. He was the son of animation pioneer Max Fleischer, and served as chairman of Fleischer Studios.
Fleischer began his career in B department of RKO Pictures, mainly directing noirs and crime dramas like The Narrow Margin (1952). Though he went on to direct films across many genres and styles, he is best known for his big-budget "tentpole" films and star vehicles, including: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), The Vikings (1958), Barabbas (1961), Fantastic Voyage (1966), Doctor Dolittle (1967), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Soylent Green (1973), Mandingo (1975), and the Robert E. Howard sword-and-sorcery films Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Red Sonja (1985).
He is also known for his informal series of true crime films — The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), based on the Nesbit-Thaw scandal; Compulsion (1959), based on the Leopold and Loeb trial; The Boston Strangler (1968), based on the early 1960s serial killer; and 10 Rillington Place (1971), based on John Christie. Early in his career, he directed the Oscar-winning documentary Design for Death (1947).
Noted for his versatility, Fleischer was popular among producers and studios, earning a reputation as a reliable journeyman. Though he was not considered an auteur and was never a highly acclaimed artist in his lifetime, many of Fleischer's films proved very financially and critically successful, winning accolades and being some of the highest-grossing features of their respective release years.
Richard Fleischer was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Essie (née Goldstein) and animator/producer Max Fleischer, a native of Kraków, Austria, now Poland. After graduating from Brown University, he went to Yale School of Drama, where he met his future wife, Mary Dickson.
Fleischer served in the U.S. Army during World War II. His film career began in 1942 at the RKO studio, directing shorts, documentaries, and compilations of forgotten silent features, which he called "Flicker Flashbacks". He won an Academy Award as producer of the 1947 documentary Design for Death, co-written by Theodor Geisel (later known as Dr. Seuss), which examined the cultural forces that led to Japan's imperial expansion through World War II.
Fleischer moved to Los Angeles and was assigned his first feature, Child of Divorce (1946), a vehicle for Sharyn Moffett. It was successful so Fleischer was assigned to Banjo, another Moffett vehicle, which was a disaster.
RKO agreed to loan him to Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman, who had admired Child of Divorce, to make So This Is New York (1948) for the Kramer Company at Columbia. Back at RKO, Fleischer made The Clay Pigeon, a thriller based on a story by Foreman.
His other early films were taut film noirs, such as: Bodyguard (1948), Follow Me Quietly (1949), Armored Car Robbery (1950) and The Narrow Margin (1952).
Fleischer said he constantly tried to graduate to A pictures during this time. When Norman Krasna and Jerry Wald set up at RKO, they asked Fleischer to see if he could make a film out of any of the film shot for It's All True but he was unable. Another project that did not come to fruition was a film starring Al Jolson.
RKO's owner Howard Hughes was impressed by The Narrow Margin and hired Fleischer to re-write and re-shoot the majority of His Kind of Woman (1952) after he was dissatisfied with the original cut delivered by director John Farrow. Hughes was pleased with the results and agreed to loan Fleischer to Stanley Kramer to make The Happy Time (1952).
Fleischer was put under contract to the Kramer Company. The Happy Time was successful, and Fleischer was meant to follow it with another for Kramer and Foreman, Full of Life. However the film was never made because the partnership between Foreman and Kramer ended.
He accepted an offer from MGM to make Arena, a rodeo-themed story starring Gig Young and Jean Hagen.
Fleischer was chosen by Walt Disney – his father's former rival as a cartoon producer – to direct 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) starring Kirk Douglas. While in the film's post-production phase, Fleischer received an offer from Dore Schary at MGM to direct Bad Day at Black Rock, but had to turn it down because of the work still required on Leagues.
He directed Violent Saturday (1955), a thriller for Buddy Adler at 20th Century Fox. It was successful, and Fox signed Fleischer to a long-term contract. He worked for this studio for the next 15 years.
Fleischer's first film under his new contract with Fox was The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955). He then made Bandido, a Western with Robert Mitchum.
Kirk Douglas hired Fleischer to make The Vikings (1958), which was produced independently by Douglas through his company Brynaprod (and distributed through United Artists) and was another big hit. Back at Fox, Fleischer made Compulsion (1959), a crime drama with Orson Welles for producer Richard D. Zanuck. It was successful and earned Fleischer a Directors Guild Award nomination.
Fox offered him North to Alaska (1960) with John Wayne, which Fleischer originally agreed to do, but withdrew when he was unhappy with the script. He moved to Paris where Darryl F. Zanuck asked him to make The Ballad of Red Rocks, a vehicle for Zanuck's then-girlfriend Juliette Gréco. The film was not made, but Fleischer directed two other stories for Zanuck starring Gréco: Crack in the Mirror (1960) and The Big Gamble (1961).