Otto Ludwig Preminger, nicknamed ‘Otto the terrible’, was an Austrian-American theatre and film director. As a child, he wanted to become a lawyer, inspired by his father who was a successful public prosecutor. By the time he was a teenager he discovered his passion for the stage and began directing plays. He eventually moved to the United States of America to work on Broadway. In 1944, he made a classic film Noir called ‘Laura’ which established him as a successful director. He quit theatre and went on to direct over 35 films during a career that spanned five-decades. While in the 1940s, he worked mostly with noir and mystery plots, in the 1950s and 1960s, he made films which were adapted from best sellers and stage works. He usually made films that explored controversial subjects like drug addiction as in ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’ (1955), rape as in ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ (1959) and homosexuality as in ‘Advise & Consent’ (1962). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.