LOS ANGELES — Walter Mirisch, the astute and Oscar winning film producer who oversaw such classics as “Some Like It Hot,” “West Side Story” and “Within the Heat of the Night,” has died of natural causes, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Saturday. He was 101.
Mirisch died on Friday in Los Angeles, in line with an announcement from the academy’s CEO Bill Kramer and its president Janet Yang.
“Walter was a real visionary, each as a producer and as an industry leader,” they said, noting he had served as academy president and an academy governor for a few years. “His passion for filmmaking and the Academy never wavered, and he remained a pricey friend and advisor. We send our love and support to his family during this difficult time.”
Mirisch received the very best picture Academy Award for 1967′s “Within the Heat of the Night,” and the corporate run by him and his brothers also produced the best-picture Oscar winners “The Apartment” and “West Side Story.”
Born eight years before the primary Academy Awards ceremony, he served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1977 and received two honorary Oscars, in 1978 and 1983, for his body of labor and his humanitarian efforts.
As a producer, Mirisch aggressively recruited top filmmakers resembling Billy Wilder and Norman Jewison, then gave them freedom to craft the flicks as they saw fit.
“We offered these filmmakers what they needed,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1983. “Billy could call me up and say, `I’d next prefer to do an image about so-and-so’ — and that’s all we’d have to know. … We became, in effect, partners with our directors.”
His company’s regular stable of directors included not only Wilder and Jewison, but Blake Edwards and John Sturges. The corporate also produced movies by John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, George Roy Hill and Hal Ashby.
Mirisch entered the movie business in his teens, advancing from usher to management jobs with a theater chain before occurring to production work on low-budget motion flicks and Westerns within the late Forties.
The corporate he founded in 1957 along with his brother Marvin and half brother Harold was probably the most successful independent production outfits to arise from the old studio system as television cut into movie attendance.
The Mirischs made a string of hits from the Fifties to the Seventies, amongst them “The Magnificent Seven,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The Great Escape,” “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “The Pink Panther” and its sequel, “A Shot within the Dark.”
Their company began with a handful of Westerns before producing 1959′s “Some Like It Hot,” the Wilder comedy with Marilyn Monroe co-starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as cross-dressing musicians running from the mob.
Mirisch was willing to tackle unusual projects. A Harvard-trained business executive, he efficiently oversaw the commerce side of things, allowing his filmmakers to think about their movies.
Elmore Leonard — the crime novelist and screenwriter on two Mirisch productions, 1974′s “Mr. Majestyk” and the 1987 TV movie “Desperado” — dedicated his Hollywood satire “Get Shorty” to Mirisch, calling him “one in every of the great guys.”
Mirisch was also amongst a handful of filmmakers Sidney Poitier acknowledged in his speech on the 2002 Academy Awards when he accepted an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
“Those filmmakers persevered, speaking through their art to the very best in all of us,” said Poitier, who starred in Mirisch’s “Within the Heat of the Night” and the sequel “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!”
The Mirisch brothers adjusted their management style film by film, depending on the extent of oversight they felt a director wanted or needed. In a 1972 interview within the journal “Movies and Filming,” Mirisch said some directors worked well as their very own producers, while others showed little interest beyond the actual filmmaking.
“We’ve worked with good directors and producer-directors, and I need to say that the connection with each of them has been entirely different,” he said.
A team for many of their careers, the Mirisch brothers also worked in theater. Before joining the Allied Artists production company within the Forties, Walter worked as a producer and later head of production and Harold and Marvin had administrative jobs.
While at Allied, Walter produced each Westerns and a series of low-budget titles within the “Bomba the Jungle Boy” series that starred Johnny Sheffield, who had played Boy within the “Tarzan” movies of the Forties.
After his oldest brother, Harold, died in 1968, the surviving siblings continued their company with Marvin as chairman and Walter, the youngest brother, answerable for production. Marvin died in 2002.
Walter Mirisch continued to supply theatrical movies into the Nineteen Eighties. Although the standard and business success of his movies generally declined, there have been still some hits, including Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe for “Same Time Next Yr.” Other movies that got here late in his profession included “Midway,” “Gray Lady Down,” and the 1979 version of “Dracula.” He was also executive producer on a couple of television projects within the Nineties.
Walter Mortimer Mirisch was born in Latest York City on Nov. 8, 1921. After studying at City College of Latest York, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1942 and a graduate degree in business from Harvard in 1943.
In 1947, Mirisch married Patricia Kahan, who preceded him in death. That they had three children, Anne, Andrew and Lawrence.
In lieu of flowers, the family requested donations to the Motion Picture and Television Fund (MPTF).
A memorial service can be held at a future date.
