He was born and raised in Toronto and attended Victoria College. As a young man in the 1950s he embarked on a trip through the United States south where he was appaled by the open racism and inequality. This experience gave him a life long concern with racial issues discrimination that can be clearly seen in many of his films including his most accalimed In the Heat of the Night and his most recent film The Hurricane.
He has been nominated for the best director Academy Award on a number of occassions, but has never won. In 1998, he was awarded The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, awarded periodically at the Academy Awards ceremonies to "Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production."
Filmography, as director, include: