Sidney Lumet (born June 25, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American film director, with over 50 films to his name, including the critically acclaimed 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and The Verdict (1982), all of which earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Director. He won an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005, for his "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers and the art of the motion picture".
His parents were Polish Yiddish theater actor Baruch Lumet and dancer Eugenia Wermus. A graduate of the Professional Children's School, Lumet was an actor before he was a director. Lumet made his stage debut at New York's Yiddish Art Theater at the age of four and acted in Yiddish theater and on Broadway into the 1950s. Sidney was also the former son-in-law of Lena Horne as he was married to her daughter, the journalist and author Gail Lumet Buckley (née Gail Jones). The couple had two children before divorcing. He has also been married three other times, including once to Gloria Vanderbilt.