Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson | |
|---|---|
 Levinson at the 2009 premiere of Poliwood | |
| Born | April 6, 1942 |
| Alma mater | American University |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Known for | |
| Spouse(s) |
Diana Rhodes
(after 1983) |
| Children | 3; including Sam Levinson |
Barry Levinson (born April 6, 1942) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. Levinson's best-known works are mid-budget[1] comedy-drama and drama films such as Diner (1982); The Natural (1984); Good Morning, Vietnam (1987); Bugsy (1991); and Wag the Dog (1997). He won the Academy Award for Best Director for Rain Man (1988), which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture.[2][3][4]
Early life
Levinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Violet "Vi" (née Krichinsky) and Irvin Levinson, who worked in the furniture and appliance business.[5] He is of Jewish background.[6]
Career
Levinson's first writing work was for variety shows such as The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, The Lohman and Barkley Show, The Tim Conway Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. After some success as a screenwriter – notably the Mel Brooks comedies Silent Movie (1976) and High Anxiety (1977) (in which he played a bellboy) and the Oscar-nominated script (co-written by then-wife Valerie Curtin) ...And Justice for All (1979) – Levinson began his career as a director with Diner (1982), for which he had also written the script and which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Diner was the first of four films set in the Baltimore of Levinson's youth. The other three were Tin Men (1987), a story of aluminum-siding salesmen in the 1960s starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito; the immigrant family saga Avalon (1990) featuring Elijah Wood in one of his earliest screen appearances, and Liberty Heights (1999).
His biggest hit, both critically and financially, was Rain Man (1988), a sibling drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (Levinson appeared in a cameo as a doctor). The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It also won the Golden Bear at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.[7]
Levinson directed the popular period baseball drama The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford. Redford would later direct Quiz Show (1994), and cast Levinson as television personality Dave Garroway. Levinson also directed the classic war comedy Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), starring Robin Williams (as Adrian Cronauer), with whom he later collaborated on the fantasy Toys (1992) and the political comedy Man of the Year (2006). Levinson also directed the critically acclaimed historical crime drama Bugsy (1991), which starred Warren Beatty and was nominated for ten Academy Awards.
He directed Dustin Hoffman again in Wag the Dog (1997), a political comedy co-starring Robert De Niro about a war staged in a film studio (Levinson had been an uncredited co-writer on Hoffman's 1982 hit comedy Tootsie). The film won the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival.[8]
Levinson partnered with producer Mark Johnson to form the film production company Baltimore Pictures, with 1990's Avalon as the company's first production. Johnson departed the firm in 1994. Levinson has been a producer or executive producer for such major productions as The Perfect Storm (2000), directed by Wolfgang Petersen; Analyze That (2002), starring De Niro as a neurotic mob boss and Billy Crystal as his therapist, and Possession (2002), based on the best-selling novel by A. S. Byatt.
He has a television production company with Tom Fontana (The Levinson/Fontana Company) and served as executive producer for a number of series, including Homicide: Life on the Street (which ran on NBC from 1993 to 1999) and the HBO prison drama Oz. Levinson also played an uncredited main role as a judge in the short-lived TV series The Jury.
Levinson published his first novel, Sixty-Six (ISBN 0-7679-1533-X), in 2003. Like several of his films, it is semi-autobiographical and set in Baltimore in the 1960s. In 2004 he directed the two webisodes of the American Express ads "The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman". In 2004, Levinson was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. Levinson directed a documentary PoliWood about the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. The documentary, produced by Tim Daly, Robin Bronk and Robert E. Baruc, had its premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.
Levinson, in 2011, was developing a film based on Whitey Bulger, the Boston crime boss.[9] The film Black Mass (script by Jim Sheridan, Jez Butterworth, and Russell Gewirtz) is based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, and is said to be the "true story of Billy Bulger, Whitey Bulger, FBI agent John Connelly and the FBI's witness protection program that was created by J. Edgar Hoover."[10] Levinson later left the project.
Levinson finished production on The Humbling (2014), starring Al Pacino. Levinson also directed Rock the Kasbah (2015), written by Mitch Glazer.[11] The film starred Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Leem Lubany, Scott Caan, Danny McBride, Kelly Lynch, Arian Moayed, Taylor Kinney, and Beejan Land.
In 2010 Levinson received the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, which is the lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.
Filmography
Films
Executive producer only
- Kafka (1991)
- Wilder Napalm (1993)
- A Little Princess (1995)
- Donnie Brasco (1997)
- The Perfect Storm (2000)
- Analyze That (2002)
- Deliver Us from Eva (2003)
Acting roles
| Film | Year | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silent Movie | 1976 | Executive | |
| High Anxiety | 1977 | Bellboy | |
| History of the World, Part I | 1981 | Column Salesman | |
| Rain Man | 1988 | Doctor | Uncredited |
| Jimmy Hollywood | 1994 | Director of Life Story | |
| Quiz Show | Dave Garroway | ||
| Original Diner Guys | 1999 | Himself | Documentary |
| Bee Movie | 2007 | Martin Benson | Voice role |
| Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight | 2013 | Justice Potter Stewart | TV movie |
| Here Today | TBA | Himself |
Television
| Title | Year | Director | Producer | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Tim Conway Show | 1970 | Yes | |||
| The Tim Conway Comedy Hour | Yes | 1 episode | |||
| The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine | 1971–1972 | Yes | |||
| The Carol Burnett Show | 1973–1976 | Yes | 72 episodes | ||
| Hot l Baltimore | 1975 | Yes | Episode: "Millie's Beau" | ||
| The Rich Little Show | 1976 | Yes | Episode: "#1.1" | ||
| Peeping Times | 1978 | Yes | Yes | Comedy special | |
| The Investigators | 1984 | Yes | Executive | Yes | |
| American Playhouse | 1985 | Yes | Episode: "Displaced Person" | ||
| Harry | 1987 | Yes | Yes | 7 episodes | |
| The Earth Day Special | 1990 | Yes | Segment: "Dustin Hoffman – Robin Williams" | ||
| Homicide: Life on the Streets | 1993–1999 | Yes | Executive | Story | Developer; 122 episodes |
| The Hoop Life | 1999–2000 | Yes | 12 episodes | ||
| The Beat | 2000 | Yes | Executive | 6 episodes | |
| The Jury | 2004 | Yes | Executive | Story | Creator |
| You Don't Know Jack | 2010 | Yes | Executive | TV movie | |
| Shades of Blue | 2016 | Yes | Executive | 12 episodes | |
| The Wizard of Lies | 2017 | Yes | Executive | TV movie | |
| Paterno | 2018 | Yes | Executive |
Executive producer only
| Title | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The Second Civil War | 1997 | TV movie |
| Oz | 1997–2003 | 56 episodes |
| Homicide: The Movie | 2000 | TV movie |
| Falcone | 9 episodes | |
| Shot in the Heart | 2001 | TV movie |
| Strip Search | 2004 | |
| The Bedford Diaries | 2006 | 4 episodes |
| The Philanthropist | 2009 | 8 episodes |
| Phil Spector | 2013 | TV movie |
| Borgia | 2011–2014 | 38 episodes |
| Copper | 2012–2013 | 12 episodes |
| Killing Fields | 2016 | 4 episodes |
Acting roles
| Title | Year | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine | 1971–1972 | Various | |
| The Larry Sanders Show | 1993 | Himself | Episode: "Larry's Agent" |
| Homicide: Life on the Streets | 1993–1999 | Himself | |
| The Jury | 2004 | Judge Horatio Hawthorne |
Other works
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armed Response | 1986 | Composer; Additional music only | |||
| The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman | 2003 | Yes | Advertisement campaign promoting American Express |
Awards received by Levinson movies
| Year | Film | Academy Awards | BAFTA Awards | Golden Globe Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 1976 | Silent Movie | 4 | |||||
| 1977 | High Anxiety | 2 | |||||
| 1979 | ...And Justice for All | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 1980 | Inside Moves | 1 | |||||
| 1982 | Best Friends | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Diner | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 1984 | The Natural | 4 | 1 | ||||
| 1985 | Young Sherlock Holmes | 1 | |||||
| 1987 | Good Morning, Vietnam | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 1988 | Rain Man | 8 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | |
| 1990 | Avalon | 4 | 3 | ||||
| 1991 | Bugsy | 10 | 2 | 8 | 1 | ||
| 1992 | Toys | 2 | |||||
| 1996 | Sleepers | 1 | |||||
| 1997 | Wag the Dog | 2 | 1 | 3 | |||
| 2001 | Bandits | 2 | |||||
| Total | 38 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 32 | 5 | |
References
- ^ O'Falt, Chris (2018-07-06). "Barry Levinson: The Oscar-Winning Director Who Decades Ago Saw TV's Peak Potential and Trump-like Danger". IndieWire. Retrieved 2018-07-08.
- ^ Erickson, Hal. "Barry Levinson". Rovi / All Movie Guide via The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 21, 2010. Retrieved May 30, 2013.
- ^ Canby, Vincent (1988-12-16). "Review/Film; Brotherly Love, of Sorts". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
- ^ Barnes, Brooks (December 14, 2009). "Al Pacino, Barry Levinson and Buck Henry Team Up on a Roth Tale". The New York Times.
- ^ "Filmreference.com". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
- ^ https://www.jewishtampa.com/jews-in-the-news/jews-in-the-newssarah-michelle-gellar-julianne-margulies-and-jake-gyllenhaal
- ^ "Berlinale: 1989 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
- ^ "Berlinale: 1998 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2012-01-23.
- ^ Rottenberg, Josh (February 22, 2013). "Hollywood Insider: What's Going on Behind the Scenes: Boston's Bulger is Now Hollywood's It Gangster". Entertainment Weekly. New York: Time Inc.: 27.
- ^ Cappadona, Bryanna (June 20, 2013). "Who Should Play Whitey Bulger in Black Mass?". Boston. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
- ^ Fleming, Mike, Jr. (3 September 2013). "QED Sets Bill Murray For Barry Levinson-Directed 'Rock The Kasbah'". deadline.com. Retrieved 6 February 2014.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
External links
- 1942 births
- American film producers
- American male screenwriters
- American people of Russian-Jewish descent
- American television directors
- American University School of Communication alumni
- Baltimore City Community College alumni
- Best Directing Academy Award winners
- Businesspeople from Baltimore
- Directors Guild of America Award winners
- Directors of Golden Bear winners
- English-language film directors
- Film directors from Maryland
- Jewish American writers
- Living people
- Screenwriters from Maryland
- Writers from Baltimore
- Writers Guild of America Award winners
- Comedy film directors