Moe: Behind the scenes with a Hollywood icon
FRI., MAR 28, 2008 - 10:59 PM
At one point during a legendary career of producing Hollywood movies that had titles like "Some Like It Hot," "West Side Story" and "In the Heat of the Night," Walter Mirisch was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
That meant Mirisch hired the producer of the annual Academy Awards show and also handled various behind-the-scenes tasks, one of which, in 1974, involved trying to convince Katharine Hepburn to appear on the program to present an award to her friend, the producer Lawrence Weingarten.
Hepburn had never appeared on the Academy Awards show, not even when she won an Oscar herself. But she loved Weingarten, who had produced "Pat and Mike" and "Adam's Rib," starring Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Deep down, the actress really wanted to present the award, but she kept coming up with reasons why she couldn't.
Mirisch answered them all, until finally Katharine Hepburn said: "I haven't a thing to wear."
There are dozens of wonderful stories in Walter Mirisch's new memoir, "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History," to be published April 10 by the University of Wisconsin Press, but that may be my favorite.
Mirisch is a 1942 UW-Madison graduate, and in the last two decades he has re-established a close relationship with the school, beginning in 1989 when then-Chancellor Donna Shalala called to tell Mirisch the UW was awarding him an honorary doctorate degree.
Mirisch came for the ceremony at the Field House. He has been back many times since, and he will be in Madison again on May 2, when UW Cinematheque will pay tribute to Mirisch with a screening of "In the Heat of the Night" and a book-signing for his new memoir.
When I spoke with Mirisch from Los Angeles this past week, I hadn't reached the part about Hepburn in the memoir. The story had a happy ending. It turned out Hepburn had an outfit after all, but it needed mending. "We could get a seamstress," Mirisch said. "I can sew it myself," Hepburn replied.
Hepburn came to the rehearsal the day before the show, and when Mirisch said, "I'll see you tomorrow," the actress replied, "Maybe."
But Hepburn showed, and she received a three-minute standing ovation. Her first words were: "I'm living proof that a person can wait 41 years to be unselfish." The audience loved it. Weingarten was in tears.
One might date Mirisch's show-business career to a job he had as a student in Madison -- selling candy made by his brother's company to the old Capitol Theater on State Street. It's probably more accurate to say his real start came a year or two later when he moved to Los Angeles and signed on with Monogram Pictures, a maker of "B," or inexpensive films.
Within a year, he was given a chance to produce, if he could find the right property. He called "Fall Guy," his first production, made in 1946 when Mirisch was 25 years old, a not very good movie but a tremendous learning experience.
He learned, all right. Mirisch learned so well he went on to produce more than 50 films, some as good as have ever been made in this country. I asked Mirisch about Billy Wilder, who made "Some Like It Hot" and "The Apartment" for Mirisch as well as other classics like "Sunset Boulevard" and "Double Indemnity."
"What did Wilder bring to a movie that was so special?"
"He brought his DNA," Mirisch replied with a chuckle. "I mean, what is genius? Billy was one of the half dozen great directors of the 20th century. He brought intelligence and taste. He was an extraordinary man. He could talk about football as easily as art."
Mirisch wrote his book himself, without a ghostwriter. For his title, he recalled a phone call he'd received from the director John Sturges. Together they had made "The Great Escape" and now Sturges, decades after the filming, was trying to find a copy of the screenplay and had called Mirisch. The producer replied that the movie was a classic. How could Sturges not have saved a script?
"I thought we were making movies, not history," Sturges replied.
In 1989, when Shalala invited Mirisch back to Madison to receive his honorary doctorate, she had told him all he had to do was show up -- no speeches. But when he got to the Field House, Shalala said he would be speaking. The chancellor said she believed people spoke better extemporaneously.
Mirisch's mind raced. How should he begin? Finally, he said, "My mother would have surely loved this."
The Field House crowd, full of moms and dads, laughed and cheered. Katharine Hepburn would have loved it, too.
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