Walter Mirisch

Starting out as a producer on such low-budget "B" fare at Monogram Pictures as Bomba: The Jungle Boy (1949), Mirisch rose to become one of Hollywood's leading industry statesman. He was a visionary who, in the declining years of the Hollywood studio system, could see that the future lay with the independent producers. Operating out of rented office space at the old Samuel Goldwyn lot in Hollywood, the Mirisches kept their overhead low by such tactics as renting studio stages and facilities only when needed.

Walter Mirisch and brothers Marvin Mirisch and Harold Mirisch were one of the most successful producing teams in Hollywood history. Their Mirisch Company produced such diverse hits as Some Like It Hot (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink Panther (1963) and many others.

Most of their films were financed and released by United Artists, and through a stock swap in 1963 the brothers acquired the company. They stayed on with UA and their production relationships with producer/directors like Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards and John Sturges became the model by which Hollywood makes movies today.

President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1977

In his 2008 memoir, "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History," he says that he vetoed John Huston's desire to use his daughter Anjelica Huston as his leading lady opposite John Hurt in the film Sinful Davey (1969), the story of a Scottish rakehell. Mirisch was worried that the inexperienced Angelica, who had appeared in only one other film at the time--A Walk with Love and Death (1969), also directed by her father--would have to adopt a Scottish accent for the role. In addition, Mirisch felt that " . . . her appearance was rather more Italian than Scottish, and in stature she towered over John Hurt. John [Huston] and I then had a serious falling-out about casting Angelica". (For the record, Angelica is officially listed as 5'10" and Hurt at 5'9".) The producer and his director constantly butted heads regarding Anejelica playing the lead, but the director finally capitulated and Pamela Franklin was cast instead (Angelica appears in the finished film in an uncredited bit part). Mirisch believes that Huston acted unprofessionally in the post-production period after the shooting of "Sinful Davey". The initial preview of Huston's cut of the film in New York was disastrous, and Huston refused to re-cut it after attending another preview, informing Mirisch via his agent that "he liked it just the way it is." Huston's agent informed Mirisch that his client "didn't see any reason to be present at previews." United Artists, which financed the film, was upset over the previews and demanded a re-edit. Huston refused to re-cut the picture, and the re-editing process was overseen by Mirisch. "Sinful Davey" was a failure at the box office. Mirisch thinks the failure might have been caused by the casting of John Hurt in the lead, but he is sure that the casting of the leading lady had nothing to do with the picture flopping at the box office. Another reason Mirisch gives for the film's failure was that American audiences likely were put off by the Scottish accents of the actors and that it might have come out too soon after Tom Jones (1963), a huge hit that won the Best Picture Oscar in 1964, five years before the release of "Sinful Davey." Mirsich also felt that "Sinful Davey" was not as entertaining as "Tom Jones." In his memoir, Walter Mirisch writes that "John Huston, in his autobiography, said that he was aghast when he saw what I had done in the re-editing of his picture. Responding to preview criticism, I had tried to make it less draggy and more accessible to American audiences . . . I saw John Huston again on a couple of occasions, many years after the release of 'Sinful Davey', and he was very cold, as I was to him. I thought his behavior in abandoning the picture was unprofessional." The two, who had worked together on Moby Dick (1956), Huston's version of Herman Melville's classic novel, never collaborated again.

Following the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, he became the oldest living winner of an Academy Award.