Acted with RADA in London

Performed with Hollywood's Contemporary Theatre Group

Joined Warner Bros. As assistant film librarian (hired by Hal Wallis)

Promoted to assistant editor, then head of insert department, Warner Bros.

Organized and headed Warner Bros. Montage department

Worked as second unit director for Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh and others and shot transition sequences for "City for Conquest" (1940) and "Blues in the Night" (1941) and compiled montages for "Casablanca", Yankee Doodle Dandy" (both 1942), and "Passage to Marseilles" (1944)

Directed several shorts in the early 1940s

Feature film directorial debut, "The Verdict"

Worked in TV as director and producer; shows include "Johnny North" and "The Legend of Jesse James"

TV directing debut, "The Doctors"

First film as producer, "Edge of Eternity" (also director and first cameo appearance)

Directed first TV movie, "The Hanged Man"

First film as actor only, "Play Misty for Me"

Subject of a Dutch TV documentary, "Don Siegel--Last of the Independents"

Suffered a heart attack during the filming of "Jinxed" and his former assistant director on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" Sam Peckinpah directed some of the film without credit