Mineo longed to be a movie director, and he directed the 1969 Los Angeles production of the prison drama "Fortune and Men's Eyes". The play, which deals with homosexuality, had premiered in Ontario (1965), opened in New York City off-Broadway (1967) and had run for a year. In addition to directing, Mineo played the role of Rocky, a prison bully who rapes a naive young prisoner, Smitty (played by Don Johnson in the L.A. production). Mineo's staging emphasized violence and sexuality. He added a scene to the play, staging Rocky's rape of Smitty in the prison shower, an event that had been kept off stage in earlier productions. The Los Angeles production, which was eventually moved to New York (without Mineo as an actor) featured full frontal nudity. Mineo also directed a subsequent San Francisco production. Although playwright John Herbert did not initially object to Mineo's alterations, he vociferously criticized Mineo's Los Angeles and New York stagings (being a convicted felon, the Canadian Herbert was unable to enter the United States to actually see the productions). Herbert refused to sell him the film rights to his play, and the estrangement obviated any chance of Mineo being involved in the movie version (In disgrazia alla fortuna e agli occhi degli uomini (1971)) of the play.
