Frank Martin

Writer, Producer and Director
By Ed Donovan

Frank Martin was born on November 11, 1955 in Kingston, New York. His father Peter was a construction worker and his mother Wilma was a housewife. He also had two brothers and four sisters. Frank attended the Ashokan elementary school and later after the family moved to Margate, Florida in 1968 he attended Coconut Creek High School. During high school he worked part time jobs doing lawn service and like so many others in the film industry he worked at McDonalds. When not working or in school he took up scuba diving and excelled at it.

 

Frank had no aspirations of going to college in fact he quit school in the tenth grade and joined the U.S. Navy. He served aboard the USS Edward McDonald DE-1043. After his stint in the Navy in 1975 Frank got a job as a Radio DJ at WFIC in Martinsville Va.

 

After spending eight years as a San Francisco radio personality and production director Frank began his career as a documentary filmmaker. His first project was writing, producing and directing a one-hour television special chronicling the life of 18th century sea captain William Bligh and the infamous mutiny aboard his ship, the HMS Bounty.  Shot in Tahiti, New Zealand and England--and produced in conjunction with the feature film The Bounty, the documentary featured Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. 

 

In 1988, Mr. Martin approached John Huston and convinced the venerable film director to allow him to document his long and colorful life.  The result was John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick, which the LA times called “a great, walloping, gutsy, funny, unsparing and ultimately inspiring film.”  Upon its release, the picture received numerous national and international awards including The Filmmakers Trophy at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival and a nomination for "Best Director" at the 11th Annual National ACE Awards.

 

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Martin wrote and directed the six-hour documentary mini-series MGM: When the Lion Roars which The Hollywood Reporter called, “a roaring success.”  Two years in production, the film is an in-depth study of the rise and fall of Hollywood's greatest motion picture empire.  The documentary received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series. 

 

Subsequent documentaries produced and directed by Mr. Martin include: the two-hour ABC primetime special The Wonderful World of Disney: Forty Years of Television Magic, the six-part documentary series for Showtime, Sex, Censorship & the Silver Screen which the LA Times called “monumental,” as well as the Disney Channel primetime special Elvis in Hollywood.

 

In 1996, Mr. Martin formed Eleventh Day Entertainment with producer Rudy Poe.  Mr. Martin directs and produces the company's long-form entertainment productions which include Warner Bros. 75 Years of Laughter, CBS: The First 50 Years and Mr. K: A Common Man with Uncommon Vision which was recently awarded the Emmy for both Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Writing. The company is produced a four-hour documentary film entitled, For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots, hosted by Academy Award winner Halle Berry and introduced by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and The Miracle of the New Testament, a twelve-part documentary series that examines the origins of Christianity’s defining document.

 

For more on the film For Love of Liberty see Film Reviews in this website.