Jack Hofsiss, American stage director, Died at 65

Jack Hofsiss was born in 1950, and died on September 13, 2016.

He was an American theatre, film, and television director.

Jack received a Tony Award for his direction of The Elephant Man on Broadway, the youngest director to have ever received it at the time.

The production also garnered him a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Obie Award, and New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

He grew up in New York City as a Catholic and served as an altar boy, which he claims was his “first experience of theatre.”

Hofsiss was a 1971 graduate of Georgetown University.

Jack had recently taught directing at HB Studio in NYC.

After completing a directing stint at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C., he became a casting director in New York for several years.

Then he directed The Best of Families, a mini-series, for television in 1977.

Jack also directed for TV Out of Our Father’s House (1978), 3 by Cheever: The Sorrows of Gin (1979), The Elephant Man (1982), “Family Secrets (1984), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985).

During 1982 he directed the film I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can.

During 1985, Jack Hofsiss dived into a pool and suffered a spinal cord injury, resulting in paralysis up to his mid-chest.

Hofsiss spent eight months at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and uses a wheelchair.

A few months after the accident he returned to the theater scene, directing All the Way Home at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Jack Hofsiss appeared in the documentary The Needs of Kim Stanley in 2005.

Jack died at his home in Manhattan.

Jack Hofsiss passed away at 85 years old.