As a child, Marks frequently appeared as an unbilled extra in films such as Boy's Town and The Good Earth and the Andy Hardy series.
After serving in the Merchant Marines[citation needed] during World War II and briefly attending USC as a journalism major, Marks dropped out of college and took a job with the MGM production department.
[citation needed] Marks worked as an assistant director on television shows The Man Behind the Badge, Treasury Men in Action, Casablanca, Broken Arrow and The 20th Century Fox Hour, before becoming involved with the pilot episode of the legal drama Perry Mason.
[1] Following the conclusion of Perry Mason, Marks began to move into feature films, beginning with 1970's independently distributed Togetherness starring George Hamilton and Peter Lawford.
[3] The film was written by Academy Award Nominee Orville H. Hampton (who had worked with Marks previously on episodes of Perry Mason) and shot in Detroit, featuring numerous local personalities and landmarks.
It was a financial success upon its release in 1973, but remained little-remembered until director Quentin Tarantino championed it decades later, re-releasing it theatrically through his short-lived Rolling Thunder Pictures in 1998, and on video in 1999.
The New York Times critic Lawrence Van Gelder claimed "In general release, Detroit 9000 illustrates the wisdom of the adage "better late than never," and praised the film's complex racial politics,[8] while the A.V.
"[10] Black Dynamite star and co-writer Michael Jai White has cited Marks's 1976 The Monkey Hu$tle as a major influence, telling the Los Angeles Times, "It was just brash, unlike anything I'd ever seen...