Showing posts with label producer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label producer. Show all posts

Monday, August 1, 2011

US film producer Polly Platt dies

29 July 2011 Last updated at 09:50 GMT Polly Platt Platt was married to director Peter Bogdanovich Hollywood producer Polly Platt, who was nominated for an Oscar for art direction, for Terms of Endearment, has died aged 72 in New York.

Platt, who was formerly married to film director Peter Bogdanovich, produced a string of successful movies including Broadcast News and War of the Roses.

Her daughter, Sashy Bogdanovich, said Platt died on Wednesday of a form of motor neurone disease.

Platt leaves two daughters and three grandsons.

Born in Illinois, she studied art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, before she began her career as a costume designer for the stage.

She worked with husband Bogdanovich, as a set designer, on films including The Last Picture Show, but they separated following his affair with the film's star Cybill Shepherd.

After the divorced in 1971, however, they maintained a working relationship on hit films such as What's Up Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand, and Paper Moon.

Platt was also known for her long professional association with Terms of Endearment director James L Brooks, and was executive vice-president of his production company, Gracie Films.

In the early 1980s she presented Brooks with a cartoon strip written by the then-unknown Matt Groening - who would later go on to create The Simpsons. Brooks went on to become a long-standing writer and developer on The Simpsons series.


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Friday, June 17, 2011

Bond producer given libel damages

15 June 2011 Last updated at 14:43 GMT Barbara Broccoli with Daniel Craig in 2008 Broccoli is currently producing the next Bond movie, to star Daniel Craig Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has accepted undisclosed libel damages from newspapers that suggested she used her position to fund a charity she chaired.

Last August, the Mail papers claimed Broccoli, as a board member of the UK Film Council, had improperly awarded the First Light charity a grant.

On Wednesday the High Court was told the articles were "deeply upsetting" and had been harmful to her reputation.

Broccoli took over the Bond franchise from her late father Albert "Cubby".

She and her stepbrother, Michael G Wilson, are currently working on the 23rd official James Bond film, due out in the UK in October 2012.

Founded in 2001, First Light provides funding and expertise to enable five to 19-year olds in the UK to create digital short films.

The organisation received ?1.1m of National Lottery funding each year from the now-defunct UK Film Council.

Broccoli, who has been chair of First Light's board of directors since its inception, was appointed to the Film Council's board in August 2008.

According to articles in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, the 50-year-old used her latter role to award herself or her company a sum of public money.

Her solicitor, Michael Skrein, said their publisher, Associated Newspapers, had now accepted that she "did not award herself or her own company any grant [and had] not misused any public funds".

He said that Broccoli accepted neither remuneration nor expenses from First Light and donated to it herself.

In a statement, Broccoli said it had been "very important" for her to get a correction and a published apology and that the damages would be passed to First Light.

"I am very committed to my work with the charity... and am delighted that all of these damages will assist in funding film-making projects for kids from all backgrounds across the country," she said.


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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Spider-Man producer Ziskin dies

13 June 2011 Last updated at 12:30 GMT Laura Ziskin Ziskin was a producer, studio executive and charity campaigner Laura Ziskin, producer of Pretty Woman and the Spider-Man films, has died of cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 61.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and co-founded Stand Up to Cancer, a charity that has raised more than $200m (?122m) for cancer research.

In addition to making movies, Ziskin - a Los Angeles native - also produced the Academy Awards telecast twice.

The Hollywood veteran had been working on the latest instalment in the Spider-Man series prior to her death.

Ziskin, who started out as a personal assistant for producer Jon Peters, produced a wide range of films during career, which spanned three decades.

These included early Kevin Costner success No Way Out, David Fincher's controversial Fight Club and the Oscar-winning comedy As Good As It Gets.

From 1994 to 1999 Ziskin was president of Fox 2000, the division of the 20th Century Fox studio that produced acclaimed war dramas including Courage Under Fire and The Thin Red Line.

She went on to have a production deal at Sony Pictures, where she worked with director Sam Raimi on his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy.

Broadcaster Katie Couric, who co-founded Stand Up to Cancer with Ziskin in 2008, described her as "one of the most courageous people I've ever known".

She is survived by her screenwriter husband, Alvin Sargent, and a daughter from a previous marriage.


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