Obituary: Daniel Melnick, Hollywood Producer

Published on Sunday 18 October 2009 20:01

Born: 21 April, 1932, in New York City, the United States. Died: 13 October, 2009 in Los Angeles, aged 77

DANIEL Melnick, a producer and studio executive, brought an innovative and often unconventional sensibility to films that included Straw Dogs, All That Jazz and Altered States. Melnick's films won more than 80 Academy Award nominations and more than two-dozen Oscars.

Among his many positions were working with major studios as an independent producer and being president of Columbia Pictures in 1978. In the 1960s, his extensive work on television included helping produce Get Smart (1965-70), the popular spoof of spy dramas that starred Don Adams.

When Melnick was named president of Columbia in June 1978, leading directors, many of whom had worked with him when he was head of production at MGM in the first half of the 1970s, applauded. The New York Times said his admirers included Paddy Chayefsky, Sidney Lumet, Bob Fosse and Steven Spielberg. "A lot of studio executives ride the fence between the creative element and the corporate investor," said Spielberg. "Few have bent over as far in the direction of the filmmaker as Dan Melnick."

Melnick survived admirably in the shark tank of Hollywood, partly because of his ability to jump from one prestigious creative position to the next. In an article in the New York Times Magazine in 1980, Aljean Harmetz wrote: "Melnick has always ridden the cutting edge of new Hollywood trends without ever losing his balance or getting blood on his feet."

Writers covering his peripatetic career liked to quote a remark he once made about the industry: "In Hollywood, a contract lays out the terms for the divorce."

Daniel Melnick was born in New York City on 21 April, 1932. He attended New York University. A news release issued in 1997 by ComTec International about Melnick's joining the telecommunication company's board said he moved to Hollywood at 19 and became the youngest producer at CBS Television. He then jumped to ABC, where he helped put together The Flintstones and The Fugitive.

Melnick formed a producing company with David Susskind. They shared an Emmy Award in 1966 for Ages of Man, which featured John Gielgud. The two also won an Emmy the next year for their production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, starring Lee J Cobb.

In addition to Get Smart, they produced NYPD (1967-69), a series that foreshadowed the genre of gritty police dramas.

Melnick's first feature film was Straw Dogs (1971), a dark and violent psychological thriller. The next year he joined MGM, where he oversaw Network (1976), a stinging satire of commercial television, and was credited with reviving the studio's sagging fortunes. Melnick became an independent producer and then production head for Columbia Pictures in the mid-1970s and briefly replaced its president, David Begelman, after he resigned in a 1978 embezzlement scandal. At Columbia, Melnick helped develop Kramer vs Kramer (1979) and The China Syndrome (1979).

In 1980, he moved his independent production company across town to 20th Century Fox, which gave him money that Columbia had refused him to do another seven days of shooting on All That Jazz, directed by Fosse.

Warner Brothers financed Altered States (1980), an adaptation of a novel by Chayefsky; Columbia had thought the movie too expensive. (It was Chayefsky's final film.)

Melnick also produced the box-office hit Roxanne (1987). His last credit was as executive producer for Blue Streak (1999), an action comedy directed by Les Mayfield.

Melnick's centrality in Hollywood doings was suggested by the monthly poker games he held at his home for years.

The regulars included Johnny Carson, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Chevy Chase, Carl Reiner and Barry Diller. "In our game, we all became adolescents," Melnick said in 2005.

Melnick was less successful in stage productions. Kelly, a 1965 musical comedy he helped produce about a young man who jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, lasted one performance on Broadway.

"That was not his favorite moment in history, but he wore it with grace," his son said.