Peter Bart

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Peter Bart
Born July 24, 1932
New York City, New York

Peter Benton Bart (born July 24, 1932) is an American journalist and film producer. He has served a lengthy tenure as editor in chief of Variety, known as the Bible of show business, since 1989. Bart is also co-host of the weekly television show, Shootout (formerly Sunday Morning Shootout) with film producer Peter Guber, which since 2003 has been carried on the AMC Network and is also seen in syndication and in 53 countries around the world. In April 2009 it was announced that Bart was moving to the position of "vice president and editorial director", characterised online as "Boffo No More: Bart Up and Out at Variety".[1]

Contents

[edit] Life and career

Bart was born in New York City, New York, the son of Clara and M.S. Bart.[2]

Starting in 1967 Bart worked as an executive at Paramount Pictures, rising to vice president in charge of production. He played a key role in such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968), True Grit (1969), Harold and Maude (1971), The Godfather (1972) and Paper Moon (1973). After an eight year stint at Paramount he went on to become senior vice president for production at MGM and President of Lorimar Films, where he was involved in such films as Being There (1979) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). Bart also served as co-producer on such films as Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) and Islands in the Stream (1977).

Bart has published eight books including Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM, The Gross, Who Killed Hollywood?, Shoot Out (with Peter Guber), Thy Kingdom Come (a novel), Destinies (a novel co-written with Denne Bart Petitclerc) Dangerous Company (a collection of short stories) and Boffo (non-fiction). He served as executive producer of the documentary, “Boffo,” shown on HBO.

Bart was educated at Friends Seminary in New York City, Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics. He served as a reporter and columnist for the New York Times and as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Sun-Times prior to entering the film business at Paramount. He is married to the former Phyllis Fredette. He has two daughters, Dr. Dilys Bart Shelton of San Francisco, and Colby Bart Centrella, of Santa Barbara.

[edit] Controversies

A 2001 article about Bart published in Los Angeles Magazine claimed Bart had been responsible for disparaging comments about minorities, but an internal investigation found those charges to be false and inaccurate.

Peter Bart has been consistently critical of the creative work of Adam Sandler. On Sandler's comedy album Shhh...Don't Tell, Sandler portrays Bart as a sufferer of micropenis who sexually assaults his secretary, on a track entitled "The Boss and the Secretary."[3]

[edit] Bibliography

(This is not a complete list.)

  • Destinies, a novel co-written with Denne Bart Petitclerc (Simon and Schuster, 1979)
  • Thy Kingdom Come, a novel (Linden, 1981)
  • Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM (Morrow, 1990). Refers to the final days of MGM as a historic film studio in Culver City. MGM still exists as a company.
  • The Gross: The Hits, The Flops: The Summer That Ate Hollywood (St. Martin's, 1999)
  • Who Killed Hollywood? And Put The Tarnish On Tinseltown (Renaissance, 2000)
  • Shoot Out: Surviving the Fame and (Mis)fortune of Hollywood, coauthored with Peter Guber (Putnam, 2002)
  • Dangerous Company: Dark Tales from Tinseltown, a collection of short stories (Miramax, 2003)
  • Boffo! Hollywood in the Trenches: How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb (Miramax, 2006)

[edit] References

  1. ^ New York Times, April 6 2009
  2. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/55/Peter-Bart.html
  3. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wjfrxqraldje

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bart"
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