Robert Wise died! He directed the Sound of Music! And West Side Story! And the Andromeda Strain!

Filmmaker Robert Wise dies; won four Oscars

By Duane Byrge and Gregg Kilday
Robert Wise, a four-time Academy Award winner whose epic 65-year career ranged from editing Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" to directing the quintessential 1960s musical "The Sound of Music" to launching the first "Star Trek" film, died Wednesday of heart failure. He was 91.

Wise died at UCLA Medical Center, according to family friend Lawrence Mirisch, owner of The Mirisch Agency, a Hollywood talent agency.

Wise, who was honored with the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1998, enjoyed a longevity that few filmmakers achieve: His resume ranged from his early work as a sound editor on Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals like "The Gay Divorcee" to his collaboration as a film editor with Welles on "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons" to his emergence as a director, and later producer, of films as varied as "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "I Want to Live!" and "West Side Story," which he co-directed with Jerome Robbins. His filmography covers almost every genre except animation.

Musicals provided him with some of his biggest successes: He won Oscars for directing and best picture in 1962 as "West Side Story" danced across the screen, and he consolidated that success with two directing and best picture Oscars in 1966 for the runaway hit "The Sound of Music."

His big-screen adaptation of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical about the von Trapp Family singers proved disastrous for the film industry, however, as it led to a round of expensive musicals, including Wise's "Star!" that were costly boxoffice flops.

A recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1967, Wise served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1985-88) and president of the DGA (1971-75). He chaired the DGA's Special Projects Committee for nearly 26 years, from its inception until 2001. He also received the DGA's top honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, in 1988.

"Bob's devotion to the craft of filmmaking and his wealth of head-and-heart knowledge about what we do and how we do it was a special gift to his fellow directors," DGA president Michael Apted said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "As president of the guild and as co-founder of the DGA Special Projects Committee, his decades of hands-on leadership were an inspiration to us all. We will deeply miss him."

The son of a meatpacker, Wise was born Sept. 10, 1914, in Winchester, Ind. As a youngster, he became an avid movie fan, spending Saturdays at the dime matinee in his small hometown. He originally set his sights on a career in journalism, but with the help of his older brother Dave, who was an accountant with RKO, Wise got a job as a messenger in the studio's editing department. He soon became fascinated with the ways movies were cut, and, after nine months, he was made an apprentice editor.

He distinguished himself at RKO and began to work solo as an editor on "My Favorite Wife," which starred Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. At the time, Wise's editing mentor, Billy Hamilton, gave him what was to turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime. He took the young Wise to meet another new young talent at the studio, Welles. After a brief chat, Welles approved of Wise as his editor for "Citizen Kane."

Characteristically modest, Wise always maintained that Welles chiefly took him on because they were about the same age and Welles preferred his attitude to that of the cynical old-timers in the studio's editing department. Wise received his first Academy Award nomination for editing the film.

After "Kane," Wise went on to cut "Ambersons" for Welles, but while the director was in South America as part of the U.S. government's Good Neighbor Policy, the studio decided after preview screenings that "Ambersons" needed some additional scenes to make it play better with audiences. In Welles' absence, Wise was assigned to direct the scenes, which were well received by RKO.

Wise then began to bombard studio executives with requests to direct. In 1943, while he was editing "The Curse of the Cat People," the film's director was removed because the project was behind schedule. Wise was handed the job, and he completed it within the 10 allotted days. The movie went on to become a hit and has since become a cult classic.

With that, Wise became a studio director. He signed on with a young agent, Phil Gersh, who remained his agent for a half-century. (Gersh died last year at the age of 92.)

When Howard Hughes bought RKO in the late 1940s, he shut down production, but Wise was allowed to continue to shoot a boxing movie, "The Set-Up." An industrious and meticulous researcher, Wise spent a long period in an arena in Long Beach, researching the fight game. The film went on to win the Critics Prize at the Festival de Cannes. His most challenging research came for the death-house drama "I Want to Live!" his film about the last days of Barbara Graham, a prostitute who died in the gas chamber. The last scene was of Graham, played by Susan Hayward, in her cell the night before the execution. In preparation for the scene, Wise watched an execution, which appalled him. He received his first directing Oscar nomination for the project.

After "Live!" Wise became a producer at United Artists. Although he established his reputation with horror and action films, his projects as a producer and director ranged through the whole spectrum of subject matter and genres. While some critics have maintained that Wise never possessed a directorial style, he claimed that his style always fit the pictures.

"Some of the more esoteric critics claim that there's no Robert Wise style or stamp. My answer to that is that I've tried to approach each genre in a cinematic style that I think is right for that genre. I wouldn't have approached 'The Sound of Music' the way I approached 'I Want to Live!' for anything, and that accounts for a mix of styles," he said in a Los Angeles Times interview.

Among Wise's many other films are "The Desert Rats," "Tribute to a Bad Man," "So Big," "Helen of Troy," "This Cold Be the Night," "Until They Sail," "Two for the Seesaw," "Two People," "The Hindenburg" and "Audrey Rose."

His last project was 2000's "A Storm in Summer," a television movie he directed from a Rod Serling screenplay, which starred Peter Falk.

Information about his survivors was not immediately available.

Jesse Hiestand contributed to this report.

eh, who hasn't?

hahaha, a little bit of obituarizing here.

I do know that evidence suggests he directed Fanny and Eugene's last scene.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), September 15th, 2005.

It features the best use of Scowling Actors Staring at Monitors in cinema history.

ihttp://www.ofdc.de/filmfest/antisand.jpg

curse of the cat people (even if he didn't direct all of it. a brilliant movie.)

the body snatcher

born to kill

the day the earth stood still

somebody up there likes me

run silent run deep

i want to live!

west side story

the haunting

sound of music

andromeda strain

the hindenberg

audrey rose

west side story and the haunting might be his masterpieces, but god do i love the andromeda strain. it's a pot smoker's delight!

Which is better than the bad rep it gets, but a better title would have been "Star Trek: The Motionless Picture."

His overlooked films are worth seeking out... Blood On The Moon a terrific western which isn't really a western at all but a gritty, bleak Robert Mitchum film noir which just happens to be set in the Old West. Desert Rats is a great WWII flick about North Africa (second only to Patton really)

Executive Suite is worth seeking out - it's your typical NYC-in-the-50s corporate melodrama, but what I remembered most about it was that it had no music score at all - the soundtrack was just the sounds of Manhattan.

He was best on small budgets. When John Leguizamo had a Fox show he did a great spoof of the Sharks going up vs a real armed gang.

Persis Khambatta needed a Bollywood number in ST:TMP.

not quite the whole story - see clinton heylin's "despite the system" for an account of how welles repeatedly tried to get in contact with RKO only to be basically ignored, except for the occasional telegram saying "you have made a very depressing movie and we are all disappointed in you." not that this makes it robert wise's fault, obv.

Well, there are people like Godard and Altman, albeit they didn't "work in" as much as "take on" genres. John Huston was fairly Wise-esque.

Geez, the San Sebastian fest had planned a big Wise retro that's just begun:

http://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2005/in/secciones03.htm

You have me mistaken with someone who has seen and loved anything Hawks did aside from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

What auteurist nonsense I would've said before getting meta is "he directed for Val Lewton = he isn't worthless."

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
The Thing from Another World (for argument's sake)
Twentieth Century
Monkey Business

I know I'm bad, but it feels so good.

6:00 am

Citizen Kane (1941)

The investigation of a publishing tycoon's dying words reveals conflicting stories about his scandalous life. Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead. Director: Orson Welles. BW-120m, TV-PG


8:00 am

Magnificent Ambersons, The (1942)

A possessive son's efforts to keep his mother from remarrying threaten to destroy his family. Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead. Director: Orson Welles. BW-88m, TV-PG


9:30 am

Curse of the Cat People, The (1944)

A lonely child creates an imaginary playmate with surprisingly dangerous results. Kent Smith, Simone Simon, Julia Dean. Director: Robert Wise, Gunther von Fritsch. BW-70m, TV-PG


11:00 am

Body Snatcher, The (1945)

To continue his medical experiments, a doctor must buy corpses from a grave robber. Boris Karloff, Henry Daniell, Bela Lugosi. Director: Robert Wise. BW-78m, TV-PG


12:30 pm

Born To Kill (1947)

A murderer marries a young innocent then goes after her more experienced sister. Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak. Director: Robert Wise. BW-92m, TV-PG


2:30 pm

Set-Up, The (1949)

An aging boxer defies the gangsters who've ordered him to throw his last fight. Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias. Director: Robert Wise. BW-72m, TV-PG


4:00 pm

Executive Suite (1954)

When a business magnate dies, his board of directors fights over who should run the company. William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck. Director: Robert Wise. BW-105m, TV-PG


6:00 pm

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

True story of boxer Rocky Graziano's rise from juvenile delinquent to world champ. Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Eileen Heckart. Director: Robert Wise. BW-114m, TV-PG


8:00 pm

West Side Story (1961)

A young couple from dueling street gangs falls in love. Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno. Director: Robert Wise. C-152m, TV-PG


10:45 pm

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

Officers on a WWII submarine clash during a perilous Pacific tour. Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden. Director: Robert Wise. BW-93m, TV-PG


12:30 am

Haunting, The (1963)

A team of psychic investigators moves into a haunted house that destroys all who live there. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn. Director: Robert Wise. BW-112m, TV-PG


2:30 am

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

Desperate losers plan a bank robbery with unexpected results. Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame. Director: Robert Wise. BW-96m, TV-PG


4:30 am

Blood On The Moon (1949)

A gunslinger hired to drive off a rancher falls in love with the man's daughter. Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston. Director: Robert Wise. BW-88m, TV-G

there are no words for how beautiful curse of the cat people is.

Director Robert Wise created a bone-chilling tone in Odds Against Tomorrow, from the winter cityscapes to the desolation of desfoliated upstate New York. His stripped-down elliptical direction captured the cheerless, stunted lives of his desperate protagonists.

...

After West Side Story(1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), a generation of film buffs weaned on the auteur theory would stamp Robert Wise as an "A" Hollywood hack. It was a bum rap

-Eddie Muller, Dark City

At least to huge fans of "The Hindenburg."

Actually, I've just had an image of Julie Andrews singing a Rodgers and Hammerstein penned number called "Klaatu Barada Nikto".

2-disc edition of The Day the Earth Stood Still out today... besides Wise-Nicholas Meyer commentary from previous release, you do get the screenwriter's translation of the order to Gort, and can hear tape of Bernard Herrmann yelling at a theremin player.

Worth every penny.

theramin-abusing BH sounds like something I gotta hear

when he thought the musicians were sloughing off and his repeated figures started to sound like a dull pattern, he'd yell "WE'RE NOT DOING LINOLEUM!"

finally seeing The Haunting on the big screen tonight

I hadn't read about it in awhile, so I wasn't quite expecting Julie and Claire's Sapphic Sleepover.

Kept from classic status only by that dumb trapdoor bit near the end with Lois Maxwell, and everything Russ Tamblyn does.

In the book the one woman with tk seems in love with the other one but unable to express it. Kind of a heartbreaking book.

the head doctor-investigator sez "Don't ask me to give a name to something which hasn't got a name."

he's an interesting director. he really tried to keep pace with trends, not just in terms of the shifting genre ecosystem of hollywood but in terms of style and technology. as a result there are some mildly and occasionally more-than-mildly adventurous things in his films, "sound of music" (which was an assignment wise wasn't that enthusiastic about) notwithstanding. my favorite of his films is pretty anomalous: "curse of the cat people" (which he was brought on to finish b/c the named director was running way overbudget/underschedule) aside. but i even like "the sand pebbles." maybe it's just that big-budget films like that aren't made with the same kind of craftsmanship anymore.

"the andromeda strain" is somehow less than the sum of its parts but the parts are pretty impressive. i once missed an important dinner because i got caught up watching it on TCM .

"i want to live!" also impressive, though for better and worse it feels like three films squished together.

and all three star Susan Hayward, alas.

I need to watch it again though

susan hayward is great!

well, she has great hair, on this we should be able to agree. but i think she's great all around!

i mean

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/69/00/9f/69009f7a64a4338ada7eede45d2eaf9b.jpg

Alfred has erratic taste in actresses.

haven't seen all his stuff, and not I Want to Live or Andromeda for decades, but i'd take CurseCat, Earth/Still and Haunting as the top right now.

susan hayward is great!

― he quipped with heat (amateurist)

She is, and critics often condescended to her because she starred in often terrible prestige soaps, but IWTL! didn't match the stark photography. I do need to rewatch.

she's very funny, while she's around, in J L Mankiewicz's The Honey Pot.

she kind of does it for me, if you know what i mean.

i['ll cry tomorrow is probably one of those "prestige soaps" but i like it. and mostly for hayward.

and her hair!

Jim Knipfel on Wise's crime movies

http://chiseler.org/post/171661159671/the-dark-side-of-robert-wise

bbc2 rn for a look at making of

dont care that its him from strictly tbqfh