My Producer Cousin on TCM Monday

Yes, I'm very into the Oscars. I've watched every year since I was 8. The reason is that when I was 8, my family took a summer vacation to California and while in Los Angeles we met my mother's first cousin Walter, who I found out was a producer in Hollywood. We got a private tour of the studios and got on the set of The Hindenberg (and met George C. Scott), and the TV shows: The Rookies, M*A*S*H and Planet of the Apes. This was very cool for an 8 year-old (although Urko the gorilla scared me a little, I wish I had known he was Spock's father). After dinner, at Walter's house, he took my sister and I into the kitchen, let the dog out, closed the blinds and opened the kitchen cabinet to reveal several oscars. I got to hold them. There had been a fire at his office so he was keeping them there. One of the Oscar's head had melted off in the fire. To an 8 year-old this just meant it must have been a special Oscar. Several months later we watched the Oscars as a family. Walter was president of the academy so we got to see him.

His name is Walter Mirisch and in 1957 he and his brothers formed the Mirisch Company, one of the first independent production companies. He recently published a memoir I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History which I enjoyed a lot. Some things appealed particularly to me: there is family stuff in it and my grandfather's first name is mentioned. I learned that the headless Oscar I held was for In the Heat of the Night. He also made Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, West Side Story, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and the original Pink Panther and Thomas Crown Affair. There are also a lot of stories of making films and the strange things that sometimes happen to put deals together.

For example, even though it was cheap, Jose Ferrer was interested in it (and had won an Oscar the previous year) and John Huston would direct, no studio would finance Moulin Rouge because it was the story of a dwarf. Walter was working at a small studio, Monarch, and they were interested, but Ferrer wouldn't do it for a small studio fearing it would ruin his career. Walter put together the financing and got United Artists to distribute it and that ultimately led to the creation of their company.

Walter was apparently well liked. Joel McCrea gave him a cadillac because he was the only person to actually give him money for residuals on any of his films. Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty was inspired by difficulties Walter faced of producing a film based on Leonard's book LaBrava which was to star Dustin Hoffman and be directed by Martin Scorsese. He dedicated Get Shorty "To Walter Mirisch one of the good guys."

Anyway on Monday if you get the Turner Classic Movies channel they are doing an hour interview with Walter at 8pm (repeated at 11pm) that I suspect will be interesting. They're also showing four of his films: In the Heat of the Night, West Side Story, The Apartment and Fort Massacre.

Here's a 30 minute podcast interview if you just can't get enough.