He qualifies here as an academy member (and conscientious one - I saw him one Saturday attending two screenings of the FL finalists) and a major player in some Oscar campaigns, but mainly this is here as a tribute to one of the really good people in the industry.
I knew Steve for maybe 20 years, as he went up the ladder through Savoy, Samuel Goldwyn, before really becoming a big factor in Artisan's success.
He was one of the driving forces behind that company not only acquiring The Blair Witch Project and then driving it into a major success by gambling on a tough summer playdate. But at Artisan he also nurtured their specialized interests, particularly in discovering and then backing Darren Aronofsky's first two films, Pi and Requiem for a Dream.
When Lionsgate bought Artisan in 2004, he became their president of distribution, and oversaw an extremely successful combination of Oscar related films (Fahrenheit 451, Crash, Away from Her) as well as great success in popular genre films - led by the Saw franchise and the Tyler Perry films.
He was active in LG's acquisition of Precious as well.
For all his achievements, unusual in this business he was well-liked across the board, widely respected and had few if any enemies.
He succumbed to gastric cancer, only diagnosed late last year. He was 50, leaving behind a wife and three children.
He will be missed.
(This means just about nothing, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the Oscar memorial segment, and any wins for Precious will likely include a tribute to him.)
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Steven Miessner would take loving care of statuettes, track whereabouts
The Associated Press updated 1:17 p.m. ET, Sat., Aug 1, 2009
LOS ANGELES - Steven Miessner, the motion picture academy's devoted "Keeper of the Oscars" who each year donned his signature white gloves to get the golden statuettes ready for their closeup before a worldwide audience, is dead at age 48.
Miessner died at his home on Wednesday of a heart attack.
Leading up to the Academy Award ceremony, Miessner would take loving custody of the Oscars as they arrived from the R.S. Owens foundry in Chicago, logging them into a computer file, keeping them safe and secure, and then on the big night, giving the coveted statuettes one last rubdown backstage before handing them to the show's trophy presenters.
He would then record which individually-numbered Oscar was presented to whom and later, arrange with the winners to get their statuettes properly engraved.
Academy colleagues, stagehands and reporters alike marveled at Miessner's dedication and enthusiasm as he worked with the statuettes — a job that was actually a year-round process, according to Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"He maintained the computer files on the current whereabouts, so far as can be known, of every Oscar ever awarded," Unger said. "He also was the liaison with R.S. Owens when a vintage statuette needed refurbishing."
In addition to his Oscar duties, Miessner was an executive assistant to academy executive director Bruce Davis and president Sid Ganis.
A member of the academy staff since 2002, Miessner "was central to the day-to-day operations of the organization," said Unger.
He is survived by his mother, Virginia Miessner, a sister and a brother.
Lead Actor - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer Lead Actress - Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire Original Screenplay - Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer
Posts: 4923 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
More of less the English Roger Corman (at least as a producer; Towers never directed), he produced over 100 genre films throughout Europe and beyond in a career that began in the 1960s and continues to the present (the upcoming Moll Flanders).
His films provided a paycheck for many actors, particularly British ones, slumming in the movies between more prestigious film and stage work. He was a major supporter of the European cult director Jess Franco, but also attached himself to many literary adaptations done up in a more general audience style.
Among his films were Ten Little Indians, The Face of Fu Manchu, Circus of Fear, 99 Women, Treasure Island (with Orson Welles), Call of the Wild (with Charlton Heston), Dragonard, The Phantom of the Opera (with Robert Englund), and in a rare stab at awards, Cry the Beloved Country.
Budd Schulberg, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the Marlon Brando classic "On the Waterfront," died Wednesday at age 95.
Schulberg, the son of a studio boss who earlier had defined the Hollywood hustle with the novel "What Makes Sammy Run?" in 1941, died of natural causes at his home in Westhampton Beach, on Long Island, said his wife, Betsy Schulberg. He was taken to a nearby medical center, where doctors unsuccessfully tried to revive him, she said.
"He was very loved," she said, "and cherished."
"On the Waterfront," directed by Elia Kazan and filmed in Hoboken, N.J., was released in 1954 to great acclaim and won eight Academy Awards. It included one of cinema's most famous lines, uttered by Brando as the failed boxer Terry Malloy: "I coulda been a contender."
Schulberg never again approached the success of "On the Waterfront," but he continued to write books, teleplays and screenplays — including the Kazan-directed "A Face in the Crowd" — and scores of articles. Spike Lee was an admirer, dedicating the entertainment satire "Bamboozled" to Schulberg and working with him on a film about boxer Joe Louis.
"What Makes Sammy Run?" was published in 1941 and follows the shameless adventures of Sammy Glick (born Shmelka Glickstein) as he steals, schmoozes and backstabs his way from office boy at a New York newspaper to production chief at a major Hollywood studio.
Unlike Nathaniel West's "The Day of the Locust," which immortalized the desperation of show business outsiders, Schulberg's book was an insider's account. Hollywood was fascinated, and betrayed. Everybody from movie executives to Walter Winchell were convinced they knew the real-life model for Glick. Schulberg later said he based the character on numerous hustlers he had encountered.
"What I had, when I read through my notebook, was not a single person but a pattern of behavior," he later wrote.
The model for countless Hollywood satires to come, Schulberg's novel was adapted for television, Broadway (a flop musical starring Steve Lawrence), but, ironically, has waited decades to be made into a film. A planned DreamWorks production featuring Ben Stiller was "in development" in recent years.
"I have a feeling they're not going to do it," Schulberg told The Associated Press in 2006. "It's still a little tough for them."
Like Glick, Schulberg had working knowledge of the movie business; he was the son of Paramount studio head B.P. Schulberg. And like the "On the Waterfront" hero Malloy, who testifies about corruption on the docks, Schulberg informed on his peers. In 1951, he named names as he acknowledged a Communist past before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
In 2003, Schulberg was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame as an "observer," a category established the previous year for journalists and historians. In his later years, he worked on a memoir, drawing upon correspondence with Robert Kennedy, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
He was a supporter of Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign and was among the last to speak with the Democratic candidate before he was assassinated in Los Angeles.
Schulberg remained active in his 90s, collaborating in 2008 on a stage version of "On the Waterfront" presented at the famous Fringe arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. He told The New York Times that he always felt Brando's character should realistically have been killed in the end for testifying against organized crime. But the director of the festival play stuck with a happy ending, just as Kazan had done a half-century earlier, Schulberg said.
Schulberg's prose was scrappy and streetwise, but the streets of his childhood were well paved. Born in New York City, he grew up in Hollywood and remembered riding in a fancy Lincoln town car, complete with gold wicker and carriage lights.
"I hated that car so much that when I had to be driven to school in it I would lie on the floor and crawl out a block away so my school mates wouldn't see my shame," he recalled years later.
He went East to be educated at Deerfield Academy and Dartmouth but returned to Hollywood to work in movies, describing himself as an underworked $25-a-week "reader, junior writer and utility outfielder."
"I passed the time writing short stories," he said, and his first six efforts, including a tale titled "What Makes Sammy Run," were bought by leading national magazines.
He then isolated himself in Vermont and expanded the story into a novel. Despite a modest first printing, the book was a huge success and was widely praised.
"A biting but nonvicious appraisal of Hollywood," wrote the New York World-Telegram. Dorothy Parker and Damon Runyon were also admirers.
But, inevitably, Schulberg made enemies. Samuel Goldwyn fired him, and Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, said Schulberg should be "deported." John Wayne feuded with him for decades.
Some Jews were concerned that Glick would reinforce negative stereotypes. But Schulberg responded that many of Glick's victims were Jewish and noted a supportive quote from Parker: "Those who hail us Jews as brothers must allow us to have our villains, the same, alas, as any other race."
In later years, Schulberg was dismayed when young people cited Glick as a role model.
"I grew up hating him," he said. "Now I'm being made to feel as if I'd written a how-to book: 'How to Succeed in Business While Really Trying.'"
During World War II, Schulberg spent 3 1/2 years in Washington and Europe on duty with the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA. All the while, he wrote short stories.
In 1947, he published "The Harder They Fall," a fictionalized expose of boxing, a sport he remained close to all his life; he wrote newspaper columns on it in later years. The 1955 screen version of "The Harder They Fall," which Schulberg also wrote, was Humphrey Bogart's last movie.
The AP write up is fairly complete, but leaves out the very important (and unfortunate) fact that he ratted out his colleagues to Congress, just like Elia Kazan did.
To his credit, he seemed to feel more guilt about that than Kazan, who never apologized.
This is a complete shock. I wasn't his biggest fan, but I grew up in north suburban Chicago amid a lot of his locations, and he really managed to capture what much of life was like around there. It was nice to see someone who stepped back and didn't feel compelled to compete in the rat race, but rather likely enjoy what he had achieved.
The Variety notice (brief):
Director John Hughes dies at 59 Helmer died of a heart attack By PAT SAPERSTEIN John Hughes, director of culturally significant films such as "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," died suddenly today of a heart attack while taking a morning walk during a trip to Manhattan. He was 59. John Wilden Hughes, Jr., born on Feb. 18, 1950 in Michigan, began as an advertising copywriter in Chicago.
In the last decade, he stepped back from the legacy he created to enjoy time with his family, maintain a functioning farm in northern Illinois and support independent arts. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons, John and James, and four grandchildren.
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This is really sad and a loss indeed. Thanks to John, talents were discovered and his films provided many bright moments for me during the 80s. My deepest condolences to his loved ones.
Posts: 873 | Location: Singapore | Registered: February 22, 2005
If Michael Jackson's music defined the soundtrack of my youth, it was John Hughes' films that defined the cinematic history of my teenage years.
This is a tremendous lost for those who followed his career of films. Without John Hughes, we probably would never know Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, Alley Shields, Anthony Michael Hall, and Rob Lowe among others. He helped usher and nurture their collective careers.
May you Rest in Peace John Hughes.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
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Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
Guys - there's a thread for Hughes below - we're trying to have one list of under 500 for the whole year, and adding a lot for individual passings is going to screw this up.
So sad. RIP Hughes. I was still holding out hope for one last film from you, but alas...
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
52 years a columnist for Variety, for most of that time the leading entertainment journalist in the world.
Here is the Variety obituary:
Army Archerd dies at 87 Variety columnist was with publication for 52 years By TIMOTHY M. GRAYArmy Archerd, whose 52-year run as a Daily Variety columnist made him unique among showbiz reporters, died Tuesday in Los Angeles of a rare form of mesothelioma cancer, thought to be the result of his exposure to asbestos in the Navy during WWII. He was 87. Archerd was one of the first writers to link AIDS to a celebrity when he he printed that Rock Hudson, despite denials from the actor's publicists and managers, was undergoing treatment for AIDS. For many years, he emceed the Academy Awards on the red carpet.
He began covering entertainment on Oct. 18, 1945, and started the "Just for Variety" column in 1953. His last column ran on Sept. 1, 2005, and he continued contributing to the paper and writing a blog for Variety.com until July 27.
His 900-word column ran on page 2 of Daily Variety five days a week until the 1990s, when it was reduced to four-a-week.
Mixing one-sentence items with lengthier pieces, Archerd insisted on exclusives and provided a community bulletin board, giving details of new deals, reporting from film sets and awards shows, as well as chronicling the births, deaths and hospitalizations of showbiz denizens. He was known for being fair, quoting people accurately and being generally upbeat -- which, in the latter part of the 20th century, became increasingly rare for an entertainment reporter.
Seldom was heard a discouraging word -- that is, unless there was something going on in Hollywood that bothered him. When Elia Kazan was to be given a special Oscar for the 1998 ceremonies, Archerd criticized the move in many columns, and he often wrote negatively about the NRA and Charlton Heston.
He also was a strong proponent of Jewish causes. When Michael Jackson's "HIStory" album was released in 1995, Archerd chastised Jackson for a song in which he used the words "Jew me/Sue me" and "Kike me." A few days later, Jackson called the columnist to reveal that he would re-record the song.
But Archerd mixed this social awareness with much lighter reports. In 2001, he told Talk magazine that he never regretted printing an item, and would not state on the record which story he was proudest of ("It would be very egotistical for me to say that"). However, in private he boasted about the July 23, 1985, Rock Hudson column, when Archerd foretold, "Doctors warn that the dread disease AIDS is going to reach catastrophic proportions in all communities if a cure is not soon found." Global media picked up on the story; though the disease was not new, this was the first time anyone linked the disease to such a well-known celebrity.
Some media pundits speculated that, had the actor's death been attributed to other maladies, the scope of AIDS would not have been publicized and realized until Magic Johnson revealed his condition in 1992.
Armand Archerd was born in the Bronx on Jan. 13, 1922. After high school, he attended CCNY for two years. When his family moved to Los Angeles, Archerd transferred to UCLA and, after graduation in 1941, began work in the mail room at Paramount.
When WWII was declared, he enlisted in the Navy. He was commissioned an ensign and shipped out to the Pacific as a deck officer on a destroyer. Archerd was in the same Navy squadron with Herman Wouk and suspects some of his foul-ups were the inspiration of a chapter in the writer's "The Caine Mutiny."
On his return from the service, Archerd joined a group of veterans who were making speeches about tolerance to civic groups.
Archerd met Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas, who introduced him to AP's L.A. bureau chief Hubbard Keavy. Thomas and Archerd opened the AP bureau in the Hollywood Citizen News on Wilcox Avenue in 1945. In 1947, Archerd was hired by the Herald-Express as assistant (i.e., "leg man") to drama-movie editor-columnist Harrison Carroll.
In addition to covering the studios, Archerd began reporting on the local nightclub scene, which included Sunset Strip sites like the Mocambo and Ciro's and music boites down La Cienega, La Brea and Ventura Blvd.
In 1953, Daily Variety editor Joe Schoenfeld hired Archerd to replace columnist Sheilah Graham.
Even after five decades on the job, he was a bulldog about the business, phoning the office from his cell phone to report a tip and to ensure Daily Variety would get the scoop. After 50 years, he still got angry when other columnists lifted his items without attribution. After nearly 40 years of working with a manual typewriter, he had to switch to computers. While some other Daily Variety veterans balked at the switch, he worked hard to master the new system. (However, he was regularly flummoxed by frozen computers and despaired when his work was lost).
Archerd was proud of the fact that he never used "leg men," writing the column himself from his small office at Variety, using four phone lines.
Even normally press-shy celebs like Marlon Brando spoke with him. In April 2002, to commemorate the start of his 50th year at the paper, Daily Variety printed a special salute to him. In a flood of photos, Archerd seemed like the fictional "Zelig," appearing in shots with a who's who of Hollywood, from Judy Garland and William Holden to Taylor & Burton, to Tom & Nicole. He was one of the last writers to use the three-dot school of journalism. One publicist summed up the attitude of many PR people in town when he said one line in Army was worth a longer story elsewhere.
Writer J.F. Lawton ("Pretty Woman") told Talk magazine in 2001, "There will always be three iconic moments in the Hollywood life. Seeing your name for the first time on a movie poster, seeing it on a billboard, and when you see it for the first time in Army Archerd's column."
Though he hated the term "gossip columnist" and bristled whenever anyone referred to him as one, he appeared as a regular contributor to E!'s "The Gossip Show" in the 1990s.
In addition, he was the co-host and co-producer of the "People's Choice Awards" on CBS since their start in 1974.
He was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 1978. And in 1984, he was given a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, in front of Mann's Chinese Theater, where he has emceed dozens of movie premieres.
As an emcee, he has introduced arriving celebs to the crowds at numerous film premieres, the Emmys for the last eight years. But he is best known in that capacity as emcee for the Academy Awards, serving that duty since 1958.
Even after decades on the job, he still got nervous before his Oscar gigs, working hard to immediately associate names and faces and to know about their most current projects. And, the year Marlee Matlin was a nominee, he practiced sign language to make her feel comfortable.
Aside from his writing for Daily Variety, Archerd wrote regular columns for the King Features Syndicate, countless magazine articles including regular features for the then-popular fan magazines such as Photoplay, writing as many as four monthly fanzine columns.
He was president and founder of the Hollywood Press Club and received honors from them as well as from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., "Newsman of the Year" from the Publicists Assn., "Man of the Year" from the Hollywood Women's Press Club., the L.A. Press Club's Eight Ball Foundation and Masquers Man of the Year. He was the first regular TV showbiz reporter, appearing nightly on KNXT (later KCBS) with Hollywood news.
When "Entertainment Tonight" launched, he was its first on-the-scene reporter. He also co-hosted the syndicated "Movie Game," co-hosted and co-produced "The Celebrity Daredevils" and "Wildest West Show of the Stars" on CBS. He has had his own radio and TV shows on KNX, KABC, KDAY and KNX-TV. Archerd was the first journalist ever to be honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Archerd appeared as himself in over 100 movies and TV shows. He has also hosted and emceed commercial events. And in the New Year's Day Rose Parade on Jan. 1, 1993, he appeared, appropriately, on the "Awards Night" float in Pasadena.
Archerd is survived by his wife, actress Selma Archerd, a son, Evan, two stepsons Richard Rosenblum and James Rosenblum and five grandchildren. A daughter, Amanda, died in 2008
The death of Army Archerd heralds the death of the last touch of class in entertainment journalism...R.I.P. Mr. Archerd, your simple, honest, optimistic reporting will be greatly missed
FYC Oscars
Best Actress: Meryl Streep, "Julie & Julia Best Supporting Actress: Judi Dench, "Nine" Best Costumes: "The Young Victoria"
WILLIAM PETERSEN: Well, this is a shock. The only explanation for this is that somehow in the last year, every one of you tried to act with rubber gloves and tweezers.
Posts: 6619 | Location: NY | Registered: December 01, 2002
He's more of a renowned television figure than he is with movies. But he was nominated for an Oscar for his "Tootsie" screenplay. He was also so well known and has worked with so many people in the entertainment industry that I can't imagine he'd be left off the In Memorium reel this year.
R.I.P. Patrick Swayze. It's amazing he lasted this long against pancreatic cancer. He will be sadly missed.
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Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into viewers' hearts with "Dirty Dancing" and then broke them with "Ghost," died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.
"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.
Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer.
He had kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.
Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.
When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that.
"I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters in early 2009. "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it."
A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad-boy Johnny Castle in "Dirty Dancing." As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, he seemed a natural to play the role.
A coming-of-age romance starring Jennifer Grey as an idealistic young woman on vacation with her family and Swayze as the Catskills resort's sexy (and much older) dance instructor, the film made great use of both his grace on his feet and his muscular physique.
It became an international phenomenon in the summer of 1987, spawning albums, an Oscar-winning hit song in "(I've Had) the Time of My Life," stage productions and a sequel, 2004's "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights," in which he made a cameo.
Posts: 4238 | Location: SE Pennsylvania | Registered: May 27, 2005
Small request - Can the title of this thread stay up-to-date. I, and I would guess others, don't look at it until I see a new person referenced in the thread. Then I am very glad to be able to learn more about someone I usually don't know much about.
