Ray Stark
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Ray Stark (October 3, 1915 – January 17, 2004) was one of the most successful independent film producers in postwar Hollywood.
Life and career
Ray Stark was involved in over 250 films during the course of his career,[1] including The World of Suzie Wong (1960), The Night of the Iguana (1962), Funny Girl (1968), Fat City (1972), The Way We Were (1973), The Sunshine Boys (1975), Annie (1982), and Steel Magnolias (1989).
Stark produced the Broadway musical Funny Girl—the musical adaptation of the life of his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice. Stark was nominated for the best picture Academy Award for Funny Girl (1968). Stark and Streisand collaborated on The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), The Way We Were (1973) and Funny Lady (1975).
He produced 11 films written by Neil Simon,[2] and was again nominated for the best picture Academy Award for The Goodbye Girl (1977).
Stark was an executive at Columbia Pictures during the 1970s and 80s. In 1977, actor Cliff Robertson began an investigation which revealed that Columbia President David Begelman had forged checks, Stark told Robertson to not press on. Robertson said he would do "what a citizen should do in this situation," and Robertson was blacklisted for two years. The story is detailed in David McClintick's Indecent Exposure: a True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street.
He received the Irving G. Thalberg award in 1980 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, presented to him by lifelong friend and colleague Kirk Douglas who introduced Stark as the unseen "Oz" of Hollywood. Stark was known for his distaste for public appearances and belief that talent, not producers, should receive all public attention.[3]
Stark was later awarded the David O. Selznick Lifetime Achievement Award from the Producers Guild of America in 1999, with guild President Thom Mount calling him "one of Hollywood's most prolific film producers ... the stuff of legend."[1]
Ray and his wife Frances owned Rancho Corral de Quati, a 300-acre (1.2 km2) ranch in Los Olivos, California and were breeders of Thoroughbred racehorses.[4]
On his death in 2004, Stark was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Following his death, a large part of his modern sculpture collection was given to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Ray and Fran Stark Sculpture Garden opened in 2007 and accounts for approximately 75% of the sculptures in the museum's collection.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, equipped for 3D presentation, is one of three situated in the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts Complex, completed in 2010.
Films
- The World of Suzie Wong (1960, Paramount Pictures)
- The Night of the Iguana (1964, MGM)
- This Property Is Condemned (1966, Paramount)
- Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967, Warner Bros.)
- Funny Girl (1968, Columbia)
- The Owl and the Pussycat (1970, Columbia)
- Fat City (1972, Columbia)
- The Way We Were (1973, Columbia)
- The Sunshine Boys (1975, MGM)
- Funny Lady (1975, Columbia)
- Robin and Marian (1976, Columbia)
- Murder by Death (1976, Columbia)
- The Goodbye Girl (1977, MGM)
- Smokey and the Bandit (1977, Universal)
- The Cheap Detective (1978, Columbia)
- California Suite (1978, Columbia)
- The Electric Horseman (1979, Universal/Columbia)
- Chapter Two (1979, Columbia)
- Annie (1982, Columbia)
- The Slugger's Wife (1985, Columbia)
- Steel Magnolias (1989, TriStar)
- Lost in Yonkers (1993, Columbia)
- Barbarians at the Gate (1993, HBO, made for TV)
References
External links
- Ray Stark at the Internet Movie Database
- Ray Stark at the Internet Broadway DatabaseLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
