The son of operatic
tenor Jan Peerce and
talent agent Alice (Kalmanowitz) Peerce, Larry was born in
The Bronx, New York. He attended the University of North Carolina. He made his directing debut with
One Potato, Two Potato, released in 1964 by the distributor
Cinema V. The groundbreaking drama about an interracial marriage between a white divorcee (played by
Barbara Barrie, who won the Best Actress award at the 1964
Cannes Film Festival for the role) and an African-American office worker (
Bernie Hamilton) was the first U.S. movie to portray such an interracial relationship. Peerce went on to direct several episodes of the television series
Branded, the
superhero series
Batman, and other shows, and then directed the early
rock and roll concert film
The Big T.N.T. Show, released in 1965 by
American International Pictures. It featured
The Byrds,
Ray Charles,
Bo Diddley,
Donovan,
The Lovin' Spoonful,
The Ronettes and
The Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Following more television, Peerce returned to film in 1967 with
The Mystery of the Chinese Junk and
The Incident, the latter of which starred
Martin Sheen and
Tony Musante. He followed this with
Goodbye, Columbus, an adaptation of the
Philip Roth novel. The movie earned Peerce a
DGA Award nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures and screenwriter
Arnold Schulman an
Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Peerce's subsequent theatrical features included
The Sporting Club,
A Separate Peace,
Ash Wednesday, and
The Other Side of the Mountain. He directed the television movies
The Stranger Who Looks Like Me (1974), and
Elvis and Me (1988), and directed several episodes of the children's television series
The Ghost Busters a.k.a.
The Original Ghostbusters, and after more theatrical films did not meet success, he became a frequent director of television miniseries, including
Queenie (ABC, 1987),
The Neon Empire (Showtime, 1988), the
Jacqueline Kennedy biography
A Woman Named Jackie (NBC, 1991) and ''
John Jakes'
Heaven and Hell: North and South Book III (ABC, 1994). He additionally did several more television movies, ending with Second Honeymoon
(2001), starring Roma Downey and Tim Matheson. He directed one episode of the 1960s CBS series The Wild Wild West as Lawrence Peerce. He also directed an episode of the television show The Green Hornet''. Peerce was married for a time to
Marilyn Hassett, who appeared in several films he directed in the mid to late 1970s. ==Filmography==