MOVIE NEWS ….. PAUL WENDKOS PASSES

MOVIE NEWS ….. PAUL WENDKOS PASSES

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. Despite the comedic tone of "Gidget," about a girl played by Sandra Dee who falls for a surfer under the California sun, and later "Gidget Goes Hawaiian," Wendkos' work more often focused on dark and edgy subjects. He directed primetime network shows including "Playhouse 90," "Route 66," "Naked City," "The Untouchables," "Dr. Kildare," "Ben Casey," "The Big Valley," "The FBI," "I Spy," "Rawhide" and "Hawaii Five-O." His other films included 1969's "Guns of the Magnificent Seven," and on television, he helmed movies and mini-series such as "The Legend of Lizzie Borden," starring Elizabeth Montgomery, and "A Woman Called Moses" with Cicely Tyson. Wendkos' first movie was the documentary "Dark Interlude" that looked at rehabilitating the blind, and his first narrative movie was the 1957 drama "The Burglar," starring Jayne Mansfield, who was a little known actress at the time.