Daniel Melnick (April 21, 1932 – October 13, 2009) was an American film producer. He began his career in Hollywood as a teenager in television and later became the producer of such films as All That Jazz, Altered States and Straw Dogs. Melnick's films won more than 20 Academy Awards out of some 80 nominations.[1]
After relocating to Hollywood as a 19-year-old, he became CBS Television's youngest producer, and then shortly thereafter was hired by ABC, where he worked on the development of such programs as The Flintstones and The Fugitive.
Together with Joseph E. Levine of Embassy Pictures, Susskind and Melnick produced the Broadway theatre musical comedyKelly, by Eddie Lawrence and Mark Charlap.[8] Promotion for the play included an event on the Brooklyn Bridge with a series of chorus girls.[9] The play, a story about the 1886 incident of Steve Brodie who (claimed to have) jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived, opened on February 16, 1965.[10] The play lasted only one performance on Broadway, which was later described by Melnick's son as "not his favorite moment in history", but nonetheless one he wore with grace.[1]
In February 1972, Melnick was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as head of production.[11] At that time, MGM was in a financial decline with the studio scaling back production[12] but while head of the studio, he produced several well-received films including the 1975 Neil Simon comedy The Sunshine Boys (1975) and Paddy Chayefsky's Network, directed by Sidney Lumet, a biting satire of television production that was credited with boosting the studio's financial performance during 1976.[1] Melnick also mined the studio's extensive archives to create the successful series of That's Entertainment! compilation films showcasing classic movies from MGMs heydey as Hollywood's most prestigious film studio.[2] In 1976, he left MGM to start IndieProductions (later known as The IndieProd Company) at Columbia Pictures.[13]
In 1980, he moved to 20th Century Fox where he completed Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, with Fox paying for filming that Columbia would not finance. That same year he produced Altered States with Warner Brothers, an adaptation of a Chayefsky novel that Columbia was unwilling to fund. Shortly after that, he resurrected The IndieProd Company to set up his own projects after his mismanagement at Columbia, that given a right of first refusal to produce projects.[14]
Later years
Melnick's later films included the 1987 Steve Martin comedy Roxanne, an adaption of the classic play Cyrano de Bergerac, Mountains of the Moon in 1990, the 1991 Steve Martin comedy L.A. Story, and the action comedy Blue Streak (1999), which was his final film credit.[1] Through The IndieProd Company, Carolco Pictures acquired the company in 1987.[14] In 1989, the company set up a joint partnership with Rastar Productions to start a joint venture Rastar/IndieProd at Carolco Pictures,[15] headed by Nancy Tanen and Tracy Barone, both of them would eventually join Channel Productions briefly in 1993.[16] In 1992, Carolco sold off IndieProd, becoming an independent production company once again, and received a four-year $350 million distribution pact with TriStar Pictures and Japan Satellite Broadcasting in order to invest money into their own films.[17]
Personal life
In February 1955, Melnick married Linda Rodgers, the daughter of Richard Rodgers and Dorothy Feiner Rodgers, at her parents' home in Manhattan.[18] Their son, Peter Rodgers Melnick,[19] became a composer. After he and Linda Rodgers divorced in 1971, Melnick fathered a daughter.[2]
Melnick was known for personal elegance and refined tastes in art, dress, and architecture. A thinker, he often offered sage advice, once telling a young assistant that "the best contracts are written not in the thrall of a new marriage but with the possibility of a divorce in mind."
He once said to the same assistant that, when facing a business dilemma, he would sometimes ask himself what the 17th-century French statesman Cardinal Richelieu, whose genius for intrigue he admired, might do in a similar situation.
During Melnick's days on the 20th Century-Fox lot, some of his staffers would affectionately refer to him (albeit privately) as Mel Nick. The inspiration for the name arose when deliverymen arrived in front of the unmarked Indieprod building with a wardrobe box of clothes from Ralph Lauren – on which someone had scrawled in large letters MEL and below it NICK. Not knowing who he was or where to find him, one shouted, "We're looking for a Mel Nick! There a Mel Nick around here?"
In regard to producing films, Melnick once reminded one of his assistants, who he thought was working too hard, that "this business is supposed to be fun."
Melnick died at the age of 77 on October 13, 2009, at his home in Los Angeles of lung cancer. He was survived by a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren.[1]
Select credits
He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.
