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Born in Lafayette, IN. Principled filmmaker who has worked both outside and within the mainstream, attempting to find projects that support his humanistic beliefs. He started making amateur films during the early 1950s, went on to create animated TV commercials, and received an Oscar® nomination for the antismoking short BREAKING THE HABIT (1964). He wrote, directed, edited, and photographed his first feature CRAZY QUILT (1966), a ragged, funny comedy about the sexes for less than $100,000; both it and his follow-up feature, FUNNYMAN (1967), with Peter Bonerz as a comedian in search of meaning in his life, won Korty a critical following. Since then he has directed such Hollywood features as RIVERRUN (1970), SILENCE (1974), ALEX AND THE GYPSY (1976), and the Love Story sequel, OLIVER'S STORY (1978), none of them remarkable or particularly successful. But for TV, he piloted such noteworthy films as "Class of '63" (1973), "Farewell to Manzanar" (1976), and the classic "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1974), which won him a Best Director Emmy®.
In 1977 Korty's affecting documentary WHO ARE THE DEBOLTS? AND WHERE DID THEY GET 19 KIDS? won an Academy Award. Since then, he has mainly directed TV movies like "A Christmas Without Snow" (1980) and "The Ewok Adventure" (1984), produced by his Bay Area colleague George Lucas, who also executive-produced Korty's delightful (but littleseen) cutout-animation feature TWICE UPON A TIME (1983). More recent TV projects have included "Long Road Home" (1991), "Deadly Matrimony" (1992), "They" (1993), "Getting Out" (1994), "Redwood Curtain" (1995), "Ms. Scrooge" (1997), "Oklahoma City: A Survivor's Story" (1998), and "A Gift of Love: The Daniel Huffman Story" (1999).
 Nominated for Documentary (Shorts) 1964: BREAKING THE HABIT - Producer (w. Henry Jacobs)
 Documentary (Features) 1977: WHO ARE THE DEBOLTS? AND WHERE DID THEY GET NINETEEN KIDS? - Producer (w. Dan McCann & Warren L. Lockhart)
2 nominations, 1 Award
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