David Bradley (director)

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David Shedd Bradley (6 April 1920 - 19 December 1997) was an American motion picture director, actor, film collector, and university instructor.

Bradley was born to a wealthy Chicago family that founded the Shedd Aquarium. He attended the Todd School for Boys (from which Orson Welles had graduated in 1931) from 1935 to 1937, and Lake Forest Academy during 1937-1940. He then spent a year at the Goodman Memorial Theatre Drama Department of the Art Institute of Chicago. During this time, he also directed a feature-length 16 mm version of Peer Gynt with 17-year-old Charlton Heston in the title role.

His studies at Northwestern University were interrupted by three years’ service in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II. He graduated in 1950 with Bachelor of Science degree from the university’s School of Speech. On the basis of the 16 mm feature Julius Caesar that he had produced and directed in Chicago, he was hired as a directing intern by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1950. He went on to direct the infamous They Saved Hitler's Brain, which proved to be his final output.