Joseph Burstyn (born Jossel Lejba Bursztyn; December 15, 1899 – November 29, 1953) was a Polish-American film distributor who specialized in the commercial release of foreign-language and American independent film productions.
Burstyn was born as Jossel Bursztyn to a Jewish family in Sokoły, Poland in 1899.
On May 7, 1921, he arrived in the U.S. with his family, parents Pinches Herszko (a merchant; born 1871 to Chaim Wolf and Chaja z Wolfów-Pinchesów Bursztyn[1]) and Gittel "Gitla" Rotbart, and siblings Chaim Kielman, Cypa, Berko, Joel Szloma and Bejla.
His most famous releases include The Forgotten Village (1941) written by John Steinbeck, the Roberto Rossellini classics Rome, Open City (1945) and Paisà (1946), The Quiet One (1948), the Academy Award-nominated Little Fugitive (1953), and Fear and Desire (1953), the first feature film directed by Stanley Kubrick.
[4] Burstyn died in November 1953 of a coronary thrombosis during a TWA flight from New York to Rome.