Born in Cleveland, he attended Dartmouth College but left to serve as a U.S. Army captain in the Pacific during World War II.

[1] Following the war, he then worked for radio KTIP in Porterville, California where he did almost every job at the station during a five-year stint.

He left after the first season and together with a writer of the show's episodes, James Leighton, created, produced and directed It's a Man's World, a TV series aired from September 1962 to January 1963 that attracted a loyal following, but not sponsors.

[2] He directed Sunday in New York with Jane Fonda in 1963, Walt Disney's Emil and the Detectives in 1964 and a pair of Elvis Presley movies ("Stay Away Joe" and "Trouble with Girls".

Salinger on a film adaptation of the author's "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor", which was never produced after a casting dispute between the two men.