The legendary, award-winning filmmaker Ferenc Árpád Darabont, who is better known to the movie going public as Frank Darabont, is a director, screenwriter, and producer. He is responsible for such modern-day classics as The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile, and for developing and producing the first and second season’s of AMC’s hit zombie TV series The Walking Dead.

Born in a refugee camp in Montbéliard, France, after his parents had fled the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Darabont’s family then immigrated to the United States when he was still an infant, living in Chicago for a few years before settling in Los Angeles. He grew up with a love for movies, and was inspired by Star Wars to pursue a career in filmmaking. He started work as a production assistant, and sold his first screenplay in 1986. In 1993 he wrote and directed a short film adapted from a Stephen King story called The Woman in the Room. King was pleased with the result and granted Darabont permission to adapt another of his short stories, the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

Darabont became a successful writer for hire and worked on a number of screenplays, including The Blob, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and The Fly II. He made his directorial debut with the 1990 TV movie Buried Alive, and worked on many episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Then in 1994 he wrote and directed The Shawshank Redemption, which went on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards, and is today widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.