Hollywood director, Vincent Sherman, has died at 99. Sherman..a contract director at Warner Bros. during the golden years...directed several well-known films like The Adventures of Don Juan, Mr. Skeffington, Old Acquaintance, The Young Philadelphians, and what has become regarded as a minor classic over the last few years, THE HARD WAY, with Ida Lupino. He had affairs with legendary actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and also have worked as an actor with John Barrymore in Counsellor-at-Law. I was fortunate to know Mr. Sherman ever-so-slightly, seeing him at the Ray Courts show and have corresponded with him and spoken on the telephone with him (which led to an inivitation to cocktails at his place that, through a chain of circumstances too long to relate here, never alas happened). But everytime I saw him, he was cordial and courtly, sharp as a tack and a great raconteur...and he was then well into his nineties, though he looked years younger, always impeccably dressed, aristocratically handsome with genteel Southern manners and graciousness. He also wrote a smart and honest biography, Studio Affairs.
