[9] Skaterdater drew the attention of executives at 20th Century Fox, who hired Black to direct Pretty Poison.

The screenplay was written by Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and was based on the novel, She Let Him Continue (which was also the working title at the time), by Stephen Geller.

But despite a well-scrubbed facade, Weld's character is in fact a psychopath, and soon the pair are committing a string of crimes, including homicide.

I was looking for the young Tony of Friendly Persuasion and Fear Strikes Out, not Psycho, although commentators naturally made the comparison between Norman Bates and the character in Pretty Poison.

"While I was looking for the location in four states, I came across a lot of factories expelling worse things into rivers than shown in the film", Black recalled.

"Essentially, we saw it as a story with many comedic elements in a serious framework — a kind of black comedy or existential humor of which Dr. Strangelove is a prototype", he said.

[10] The subsequent film Black directed afterwards was Jennifer on My Mind (1971), and its screenplay was written by Erich Segal, who was known for his novel, Love Story.

[3][6][8] "The gold-plated nail in my career coffin was pounded when, after the box-office failure of Pretty Poison, I accepted a dreadful project, Cover Me Babe, that never should have been made", Black remarked.

He also directed Ron Howard in an adaptation of Sherwood Anderson's I'm a Fool, which served as a 1977 episode for the PBS series, The American Short Story.

[7][10][14] Black attempted a return to the big screen in 1978 with a voodoo horror film initially titled Marianne.

[9] Black officially returned to the big screen with A Man, a Woman, and a Bank (1979), a caper comedy film starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams and Paul Mazursky.

[11] Roger Ebert on A Man, a Woman and a Bank: "Since he made the legendary Pretty Poison in 1968, Black's career has drifted from TV assignments to obscure features and back again.

[11] Black also directed the sex comedy Private School (1983), starring Phoebe Cates and Matthew Modine.

[7][14] Immediately after Pretty Poison, Black co-wrote, with Fred Segal, a screen adaptation of Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, one of many projects that failed to come to fruition.

[8] In 1974, there was a vain possibility of making a film called Killer, written by Richard Maltby, for New Line Cinema.

[9][13][22] Towards the end of Anthony Perkins' life, he fought long and hard to get Black to direct Psycho IV (1990), but that too was in vain.

[3][6] Marco Black was "inspired to join the family business" by his father, and he has worked as a unit production manager on CBS's Extant and an assistant director on such films as the Will Ferrell comedy Old School (2003).

He is survived by his two children, as well as his son-in-law Renaud Gonthier, and his five grandchildren: Morgan, Cameron, Sidney, Hayden and John.