After abandoning his law studies at the University of Vienna, he was trained to be a cinematographer at the École Technique de Photographie in Paris (1927).
Awarded first annual John Huston Award for Artists Rights. [1994]
Became a naturalized US citizen in 1936.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890- 1945". Pages 1238-1247. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Directed 18 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Hume Cronyn, Montgomery Clift, Gary Cooper, Julie Harris, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Anthony Franciosa, Audrey Hepburn, Glynis Johns, Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Jason Robards, Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda and Maximilian Schell. Cooper, Redgrave, Robards, Sinatra, Reed and Scofield won Oscars for their performances in one of Zinneman's movies. Additionally, Ivan Jandl received a Juvenile Awards for is performance in Zinneman's The Search (1948).
Father of film director-producer Tim Zinnemann.
Former father-in-law of Meg Tilly and Christine M. Walton.
He is widely credited with an incident known as "you first". The story goes that when Oscar winner Zinnemann sat down in a office for a meeting with a young executive, the executive asked him to list what he had done in his career. Zinnemann humiliated the executive by reportedly answering, "Sure. You first.".
He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.
His father was an Austrian Jewish doctor.
His main influence as a director was famed documentarian Robert J. Flaherty who made a huge impression on the young Zinnemann when he acted as assistant director to Flaherty on an early 1930s project that was ultimately abandoned.
Is portrayed by Peter James Haworth in Hollywoodland (2006).
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961