Michael Sucsy is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the filmmaker who created the hit film Grey Gardens (2009 film).

Early Life

Sucsy was raised in Connecticut and New York and is a graduate of Deerfield Academy and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service where he earned a degree in International Relations, Law & Organization.

Career

Sucsy segued from studying international relations to film production via the advertising industry, where he worked for the award-winning agency Cliff Freeman & Partners on the first-ever Staples t.v. ads. Sucsy then pursued work as a production assistant, an art department coordinator, a production secretary, and an assistant director on feature films, commercials, and music videos in Washington DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. He later went on to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in film from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Sucsy then began directing commercials and was soon dubbed by Shoot! Magazine "as one of the industry's crop of new directors to watch." He was subsequently nominated for the Young Director of the Year Award given in conjunction with the 2002 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. He currently directs commercials through Serial Pictures and is represented for film and television by CAA, Anonymous Content, and 42 West.

Grey Gardens

In 2003, Sucsy was inspired to write and direct a narrative feature film about the famous true story of Jackie O’s eccentric relatives ‘Big Edie’ Bouvier Beale and ‘Little Edie’ Bouvier Beale called Grey Gardens after viewing the well-known documentary of the same name. The day after he first watched the documentary, Sucsy embarked on what was to become a six-year process to get Grey Gardens made. He used primary sources including Little Edie's personal correspondence, private journals, and poetry as well as interviews with family members and friends as the basis of his original script which traced the Beales' tragic descendant from riches to rags over some forty years. With Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange attached to star as the reclusive mother-daughter duo, the project made its way to HBO who, in 2006, announced that Grey Gardens was moving into production with Sucsy as its director. Principal photography on Grey Gardens began in October 2007, and it debuted on HBO in April 2009 to great acclaim from critics and audiences, both new and old to the Grey Gardens phenomenon.

The film received multiple awards: 6 Primetime Emmy Awards including Best Made for Television Movie, the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Made for Television, and both the Broadcast Film Critics and the Television Critics Association Awards for Best Television Movie. Sucsy was additionally nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Mini-Series as well as the Writers Guild of America Award for Original Long Form Teleplay.

Upcoming Projects

Sucsy’s follow-up to Grey Gardens (2009 film) is the film The Vow, a romantic drama set in Chicago starring Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams

Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...

 and Channing Tatum

Channing Tatum

Channing Matthew Tatum is an American actor and film producer. He began his career as a fashion model and appearing in television commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew before turning to film roles...

. The Vow will be released by Sony Screen Gems and Columbia Pictures on February 10, 2012. Sucsy’s next film Rosaline, for Fox 2000, is a comedic retelling of the classic Romeo and Juliet story set in 16th century Verona told from the point of view of Romeo’s jilted ex-girlfriend.

Filmography

• Grey Gardens (2009 film)

• The Vow (film) (2011)

• Rosaline (announced)

External Links

• Michael Sucsy: Inspiration in Squalor: How I "Rebuilt" Grey Gardens
• Serial Pictures: Michael Sucsy / "Superfriends"
• Out Magazine Top 100

• Grey Gardens Official Website