The name Walter Mirisch might not be familiar but a glance at his resume reveals some of the most familiar titles in film history. Mirisch produced Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Pink Panther, In the Heat of the Night and Some Like It Hot. But that’s only a quick taste from a list that also includes The Thomas Crown Affair, Fiddler on the Roof, The Apartment and West Side Story.
It’s a remarkable career for someone whose early days in the movies were spent as an usher at Milwaukee’s Oriental Theatre. Mirisch went on to earn a history degree in Madison and a business degree from Harvard. The love of movies and history coupled with business savvy helped him coax great work from the directors who worked with him.
In his autobiography, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (published by the University of Wisconsin Press), Mirisch considers himself “among the most fortunate of men.” Mirisch’s Hollywood years began on “Poverty Row,” where B pictures were churned out by C-minus studios. Mirisch’s early products included “jungle pictures,” westerns, science fiction and film noir. Cutting a financial deal to fund the John Huston-directed Moulin Rouge, he began inching into prestigious films by way of the business office. By the late ‘70s his peak years had passed, but he continued working on television movies into the ‘90s.
Mirisch picked up some good stories along the way, including his efforts to stop Errol Flynn, already in the twilight of his career, from continuously refilling his stage prop goblet with vodka on the set of the swashbuckling fantasy The Adventures of Hajii Baba. He did a picture with Elvis and was astonished by the single-minded crudit of his manager, Tom Parker.
Sadly, Mirisch has become a rarity in today’s Hollywood—a man who actually enjoys making movies. The passing of his generation into retirement and death has left the industry in the hands of soulless accountants.
