Howard Zieff, a top advertising print photographer and TV commercial director in the 1960s and early '70s before tapping his flair for comedy as the director of movies including "Private Benjamin," "Hearts of the West" and "My Girl," has died. He was 81....
Beginning with "Slither," a 1973 comedy with James Caan and Peter Boyle, Zieff directed eight other comedies, including "House Calls," "Unfaithfully Yours" and "The Dream Team."
The effects of Parkinson's disease forced Zieff to retire shortly after the release of "My Girl 2" in 1994.
"I loved Howard and his zest for life," Goldie Hawn, who received an Oscar nomination for best actress in a leading role for "Private Benjamin," said in a statement to The Times on Monday.
"What I remember and cherish most was his humor and love of laughter," she said. "He had a special talent for directing comedies, always a rare gift. We laughed and cried together while making 'Private Benjamin,' and I will miss him so much."
Richard Benjamin, one of the stars of the 1978 movie "House Calls," told The Times on Monday that Zieff "had a wonderful wit and was very, very smart."
"The main thing that you wanted to do was get him laughing," said Benjamin. "If I got a laugh from him, I knew we were doing it right. And it was a wonderful set, where you just wanted comedy to flourish. It was relaxed and fun and easy, and he kept it like that."
Before Benjamin met Zieff or even knew who he was, he was a fan of Zieff's work in print ads and TV commercials.
As a TV commercial director in the the '60s, Zieff was known for what Time magazine called his "zany sense of humor and an apparently limitless imagination."
He was, the magazine said, "the leading practitioner of what the trade calls the indirect sell: The product is visible and so is the pitch, but the commercial zings across chiefly because it is entertaining and refuses to take itself seriously."
One of Zieff's best-known commercials was the Alka-Seltzer "Mamma Mia. That's a spicy meatball" spot in which a TV commercial crew is shown filming a middle-aged man seated at a kitchen table where his wife has placed a plate of meatballs in front of him.
"Mama mia. That's a spicy meatball," he says after taking a bite.
"Cut," the off-screen director says.
"What was the matter with that?" asks the meatball-eating actor.
"The accent."
And so it goes -- take after failed take. By the 59th take, the effects of sampling those meatballs has taken a heavy toll.
"Sometimes you eat more than you should," intones an off-camera announcer. "And when it's spicy besides -- mama mia, do you need Alka-Seltzer . . . "
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 01:59 (seventeen years ago)