Harry Hurwitz

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title: "Harry Hurwitz" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1938-births", "1995-deaths", "male-actors-from-new-york-city", "american-male-screenwriters", "american-painters", "american-television-directors", "cooper-union-faculty", "new-york-university-faculty", "parsons-school-of-design-faculty", "film-directors-from-new-york-city", "the-high-school-of-music-&-art-alumni", "new-york-university-alumni", "state-university-of-new-york-at-new-paltz-faculty", "queens-college,-city-university-of-new-york-faculty", "new-york-institute-of-technology-faculty", "pratt-institute-faculty", "state-university-of-new-york-at-purchase-faculty", "20th-century-american-male-actors", "screenwriters-from-new-york-(state)", "20th-century-american-male-writers", "20th-century-american-writers", "20th-century-american-screenwriters"] description: "American film director and painter" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Hurwitz" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American film director and painter ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Harry L. Hurwitz
birthname
birth_date
birth_place	New York City, United States
death_date
death_place	Los Angeles, California, United States
occupation
years_active	1971–1994
spouse	Joy Hurwitz
::

| name = Harry L. Hurwitz | birthname = | birth_date = | birth_place = New York City, United States | death_date = | death_place = Los Angeles, California, United States | othername = | occupation = | years_active = 1971–1994 | spouse = Joy Hurwitz Harry Hurwitz (January 27, 1938 – September 21, 1995) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and producer.

Biography

Hurwitz attended The High School of Music & Art and New York University, where he received a B.S. in 1960 and an M.A. in 1962. Before becoming a director, Hurwitz worked intermittently as a drawing, painting and filmmaking instructor at various institutions, including New York University, the State University of New York at New Paltz, Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, Queens College, Purchase College, the New York Institute of Technology and the Pratt Institute. His directorial debut film The Projectionist included the first acting role for actor/comedian Rodney Dangerfield. He used the pseudonym Harry Tampa for what he called his "disco vampire movies."

In the early 1970s, Hurwitz was an artist-in-residence at the University of South Florida in Tampa. It was at that time that he produced the black-and-white serigraphic self-portrait that briefly (and inexplicably, as the film is set in Los Angeles) appears on the walls of the main character May's (Susan Dey) apartment in the 1986 film Echo Park.

Painting

As a painter, Hurwitz has work in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art (now defunct) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Filmography

::data[format=table title=""]

Title	Year	Director	Writer	Producer	Role	Notes	The Projectionist	Chaplinesque, My Life and Hard Times	Richard	Fairy Tales	Auditions	Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula	Safari 3000	Under the Rainbow	The Comeback Trail	The Big Score	The Rosebud Beach Hotel	Once a Hero	That's Adequate	Fleshtone
1970				Friendly Usher	directorial debut, also editor
1972					documentary film
1972
1978					as Harry Tampa
1978				The Director (uncredited)	as Harry Tampa
1979					as Harry Tampa
1980
1981
1982					also editor
1983
1984
1987					unknown episodes
1989
1994
::

References

References

1. (October 11, 1995). "Harry Hurwitz, a Screenwriter, Film Director and Painter, 57". [[The New York Times]].
2. (September 21, 1995). "Harry Hurwitz". [[The New York Times]].
3. Brennan, Sandra. (September 21, 1995). "Harry Hurwitz > Overview". AllMovie.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::