Film Mogul John Calley R.I.P.

[rkolinski]

John Calley Tribute for Thalberg Award - YouTube

John Calley presided over turnarounds at three Hollywood film studios and helped produce some of the most popular and critically successful films of recent decades.

At Warner Bros. in the 1970s, he helped set in motion a decade of hits that rival the best of any studio in film history.

At United Artists and Sony Pictures Entertainment in the 1990s, Mr. Calley put ailing studios on firm financial footings with such hits as "The Birdcage," "Men in Black" and the James Bond thriller "GoldenEye." He also was a renowned producer in his own right, on films such as "The Remains of the Day" and "The Da Vinci Code."

Mr. Calley, who died Tuesday at age 81, got his start in show business in the mailroom at NBC in the early 1950s, and by the mid-1960s became a producer at Filmways with credits including "Ice Station Zebra," "The Loved One" and "Catch-22."

In 1968, Mr. Calley was hired by Warner Bros., where he helped create 120 films, including "A Star is Born," "The Exorcist," "Deliverance," "Blazing Saddles," "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "All the President's Men and "Chariots of Fire."

Mr. Calley was particularly close to directors Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood—Mr. Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon," and Mr. Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" and Western series were all released by Warner during this period.

Then, in 1980, having just signed a lucrative contract extension with Warner, Mr. Calley walked away. His marriage broke up; he sold his Hollywood home, his furniture and his dog to his lawyer.

Mr. Calley spent much of the following decade living in a giant home on Fishers Island, off Long Island, N.Y. He dabbled in commodities markets and traveled to Europe in his sailboat, out of touch with the film world.

He eventually settled in Washington, Conn., where he lived with director David Lean's former wife, Sandy, as a gentleman farmer. "The problem was, I was becoming a vegetable," he told Newsweek in 1996.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Calley slowly returned to Hollywood, producing two films with his friend Mike Nichols: "Postcards From the Edge" and "The Remains of the Day." The latter made, in partnership with Merchant Ivory Productions, was nominated for eight Academy Awards.

"As a friend he was always there and always funny. He made life a joy for those he loved," said Mr. Nichols in a statement. "As a studio head, he was unfailingly supportive and didn't try to do the filmmaker's job."

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lured Mr. Calley back in 1993 to head United Artists, a moribund studio where he released the smash hit "GoldenEye," as well as the critically acclaimed "Leaving Las Vegas."

He moved in 1996 to troubled Sony Pictures Entertainment, where films he worked on included "Spider-Man" and "As Good As It Gets." By 2001, when he left to again be an independent producer, Sony had moved from among the smallest major studios to the box-office leader.

In recent years Mr. Calley produced "The Da Vinci Code" and its sequel, "Angels and Demons," along with "Closer" and others.

At his death, Sony released statements from such film veterans as Candice Bergen, Clint Eastwood and Buck Henry, who noted that "the problem with making a comedy with John is that he was usually funnier than the actors."

Mr. Calley had a reputation for concentrating on work instead of such trappings of success as executive titles, Gulfstream jets and private tailoring.

In a 1994 profile in the New Yorker magazine, agent Michael Ovitz called Mr. Calley "frighteningly egoless."