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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed on Saturday that Oscar-winning film producer Walter Mirisch, who supervised such classics as “Some Like It Hot,” “West Side Story,” and “In the Heat of the Night,” had passed away of natural causes. He was 101.
Academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang released a statement on Saturday confirming Mirisch’s death, which occurred on Friday in Los Angeles.
They remarked that Walter “was a true visionary, both as a producer and as a leader in the industry,” citing his lengthy tenures as academy president and governor. His dedication to filmmaking and the Academy was unflinching, and he stayed a trusted friend and adviser to many. In this time of sorrow, please know that you have our thoughts and prayers.
Oscar winners “The Apartment” and “West Side Story” were also produced by the company managed by Mirisch and his brothers, and Mirisch won the award for best picture for “In the Heat of the Night” in 1967.
For his work and his humanitarian efforts, he was awarded two honorary Oscars—in 1978 and 1983—despite the fact that he was born eight years before the first Academy Awards event.
Mirisch, as a producer, actively sought out and hired acclaimed directors like Billy Wilder and Norman Jewison, and then granted them creative control over the films they produced.
He told the Los Angeles Times in 1983, “We offered these filmmakers what they needed.” Billy could just give me a call and say, “I’d next like to do a picture about so-and-so,” and that’s all we’d need to know. In a sense, our board of directors and us are now equal stakeholders.
Wilder, Jewison, Blake Edwards, and John Sturges were a few of the regular directors at his firm. Directors like John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, George Roy Hill, and Hal Ashby all had films made by the studio.
In his teens, Mirisch joined the film industry, working his way up from usher to management positions with a theater chain before moving into production work on low-budget action films and Westerns in the late 1940s.
In 1957, he co-founded a production company with his brother Marvin and half-brother Harold, and by the time television began to eat into movie ticket sales, it had become one of the most successful independent production companies to emerge from the old studio system.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Mirischs had a run of hits, including “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 “A Shot in the Dark.”
After producing a few Westerns, in 1959 they took a chance on the Billy Wilder comedy “Some Like It Hot,” featuring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis as cross-dressing musicians on the run from the mob.
When it came to work, Mirisch didn’t mind taking on the oddball assignments. As a Harvard-educated business leader, he effectively managed the financial aspects of production so that his filmmakers could focus on making great films.
Mirisch has been called “one of the good guys” by crime author and screenwriter Elmore Leonard, whose work with Mirisch includes the 1974 film Mr. Majestyk and the 1987 television film Desperado. Leonard dedicated his Hollywood satire “Get Shorty” to Mirisch.
At the 2002 Academy Awards, when Sidney Poitier received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, he mentioned Mirisch as one of the few filmmakers he admired.
After starring in Mirisch’s “In the Heat of the Night” and its sequel, “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!,” Poitier praised the filmmakers, saying, “Those filmmakers persevered, speaking through their art to the best in all of us.”
The Mirisch brothers’ management style varied from film to film, based on how much control they believed the director required. Some directors work well as their own producers, Mirisch said in a 1972 interview published in the journal “Films and Filming,” while others show little interest beyond the real filmmaking.
As he put it, “I must say that the relationship with each of them has been entirely different.” “We’ve worked with brilliant directors and producer-directors.”
The Mirisch brothers were a theatrical duo for the majority of their lives. Walter was a producer and subsequently head of production, while Harold and Marvin worked in administration before joining the Allied Artists production company in the 1940s.
While working for Allied, Walter produced both Westerns and the low-budget “Bomba the Jungle Boy” series, which starred Johnny Sheffield (who had previously portrayed Boy in the “Tarzan” films of the 1940s).
Marvin became chairman of the business after the death of Harold, their eldest brother, in 1968, and Walter, the youngest brother, took over production. Marvin passed away in the year 2002.
Through the 1980s, Walter Mirisch kept making pictures for the big screen. His films usually declined in quality and box office success, but he did have a few successes like the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning “Same Time Next Year.” The films “Midway,” “Gray Lady Down,” and “Dracula: 1979” were all released late in his tenure. In the 1990s, he also worked as an executive director on a few TV shows.
On November 8th, 1921, Walter Mortimer Mirisch entered the world in the Big Apple. He attended City College of New York before continuing his education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1942, and at Harvard Business School, where he received an MBA in 1943.
Mirisch married Patricia Kahan in 1947; she died a year before him. Anne, Andrew, and Lawrence were their three offspring.
The family has asked for contributions to the Motion Picture and Television Fund in place of flowers (MPTF).
There will be a memorial ceremony at a later time.
»Walter Mirisch, Oscar-winning producer dies at 101«
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