Date of Birth: 12 December 1925
Place of Birth: Berlin, Germany
Date of Death: 19 January 2014
Place of Death: London, England
Main Occupations: director, producer
A German-born director, educated in the UK (where he made several genre films) before moving to the USA as a teenager. He started his career working on documentaries before he landed a job working for Alfred Hitchcock (“I guess because I had an English accent”) working as a story reader on the TV shows Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), working his way up to producer. One novelette that he read for the final year of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour that was ultimately rejected was Catacombs by Jay Bennett which then became the basis for Hessler’s first feature film as director in 1965.
In 1969, the British wing of AIP asked him to take over The Oblong Box from director Michael Reeves who fell ill during pre-production and he worked with Christopher Wicking for the first time. Together they worked on Cry of the Banshee (1970), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) and Scream and Scream Again (1969). He went on to direct the Ray Harryhausen fantasy epic The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), but mostly spent the rest of his career working on American television.
He died in January 2014 at the age of 88.
Genre Filmography (as director)
Catacombs (1965)
The Oblong Box (1969)
Scream and Scream Again (1969)
Cry of the Banshee (1970)
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)
Scream Pretty Peggy (1973)
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: The Spanish Moss Murders (1974)
The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977)
Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)
The New Adventures of Wonder Woman: Pot of Gold (1978)
The New Adventures of Wonder Woman: Gault’s Brain (1978)
Tales of the Haunted: Evil Stalks This House (1981)
The Girl in a Swing (1988)
