New Jersey-born Giuseppe Danielle Sorgente (aka Joseph Sargent) was a graduate in drama from New York's New School for Social Research. He started out in televiion, where he proved a superb and economical craftsman of series such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. He broke into feature films in the late '60s, and proved himself a master of suspense with the science fiction thriller Colossus -- The Forbin Project (1970) and crime thriller The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three (1973).