Carl Fick was the director of several documentaries including the Cannes award-winning A Day in the Death of Donny B and the author of two novels, The Danziger Transcript and A Disturbance in Paris.The Danziger Transcript was published in hardcover by Putnam in 1971, and in mass market paperback by Dell in 1974. He also co-authored or ghost-wrote From Mexico with Death with Jose Luis Guzman, published in 1977 by Zebra. A Disturbance in Paris was published by Little, Brown in 1982. He attended Cornell University, graduating in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While an undergraduate, he wrote a weekly column for the Trumansburg Leader. In 1941, he married Shirley Stevens Stuart in Bronxville, New York. After graduating, he went to work for Collier's magazine as a staff writer. But then the US entered World War II, and Fick went to serve in England in the US Army Air Corps.
Career as filmmaker
After the war ended, Fick returned to the US and got involved in making movies, in addition to continuing to write for magazines. He wrote scripts for several television and film productions, including a conversion of the Whit Masterson novel, A Shadow in the Wild. He produced and directed several documentary films, one of which won prizes at many film festivals in 1969. Its title is A Day in the Death of Donny B, and it is available from several sources to be viewed streaming online for free. According to many reviewers on these sites, it is one of the best anti-drug movies ever made.
Career as writer
Then Fick went on to write a novel, The Danziger Transcript. It was successful and was even turned into a two-act play by Robert Bressard. His most recent novel was in 1982, A Disturbance in Paris, which was widely reviewed, although with mixed opinions on the parts of critics. Both Danziger Transcript and Disturbance in Paris have storylines and main characters that reflect Fick's long years of involvement with journalism and writing, as well as filmmaking and scriptwriting.
