Sandy Howard

Sandy Howard (August 1, 1927 – May 16, 2008) was an American film producer and television producer best known for the film A Man Called Horse.[1]

Early Life and Career

A native of the Bronx, New York City, Howard wrote short stories for publication in magazines like Liberty, and worked as a publicist for Broadway shows. He also wrote reviews of TV for magazines which led to him working as an assistant producer.[1] Howard became a director for the Howdy Doody show at the age of nineteen; he later produced the Captain Kangaroo show.[2]

Howard wrote for The Alan Dale Show.[3] He cooperated with Ray Heatherton creating the TV show The Merry Mailman in the early 1950s; they also made The Ray Heatherton Show on radio which Howard produced and directed.[4] Howard was producer of The Barry Gray Radio Show (1951–1958).[5][6]

Howard also worked on television shows such as Night Court U.S.A., Police Station, Harrigan and Son, and Mack & Myer for Hire. Howard estimated he worked on more than 15 childrens' shows and 30 adults shows.[1]

On December 1957 Howard announced his intention to go into low budget filmmaking with The First Day of the Third World War.[7] However the film was not made. Howard worked for Sol Lesser[8] but then left to set up his own company in August 1958.[9]

Film producer

Howard began making feature films with the low budget comedy Diary of a Bachelor (1964) which he also directed. He produced City of Fear (1965) and shot American footage for the foreign release of Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965).

Howard produced a MGM thriller Jack on Diamonds (1967) based on his own story.[10] The script was written by Jack DeWitt who became Howard's regular screenwriter. The two men collaborated together on King of Africa (1967) shot in Africa and Spain, which Howard directed. "They were lean days," recalled Howard. "I lost a fortune on the wrong things."[1]

Howard had a big success with A Man Called Horse (1970) starring Richard Harris which made $44 million worldwide.[1] Howard went on to make four more films with Harris: Man in the Wilderness (1971),[11] Echoes of a Summer, Return of a Man Called Horse and Triumph of a Man Called Horse. The first two films had minimal dialogue. "The average person hates dialogue anyway," said Howard. "Unless it's exceptional they don't want to hear it... Pictures work because audiences get involved with the characters. And there's an additional benefit - by minimizing the dialogue we make the films more attractive to foreign markets."[1]

Howard made a series of films for 20th Century Fox: The Neptune Factor (1973), Together Brothers (1974), The Devil's Rain (1976) and Sky Riders (1976). In 1976 he said his mantra was "the public wants to see something they've never seen before."[1]

After an explosion on the Greek set of Sky Riders (1976), a Greek electrician died and 11 others were injured and Howard was arrested for manslaughter and detained for several weeks.[12][13] He was unable to leave the country for five months and a $250,000 out-of-court settlement was made,[12][13] - which one Variety article called a "bribe" - so the crew member responsible would not be imprisoned by the military regime.[14]

While stuck in Greece, Howard claimed he made unfavourable deals to make films such as The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976) and The Island of Dr Moreau (1977).[12] Moreau was made for AIP who also financed Howard's Meteor (1979) and Jaguar Lives! (1979). Howard produced Circle of Iron (1979) and made a series of films in Canada such as City on Fire (1979), Terror Train (1980) and Death Ship (1980).[15]

In the early 1980s Howard had a big hit with Vice Squad (1982). He also made Deadly Force (1983), Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983), and Angel (1984), another big hit.

Bankruptcy

In December 1984, Howard and his company filed for bankruptcy claiming that he was owed millions of dollars from foreign distributors despite the recent success of Angel (1984) and having four films ready to be released.[12] These included What Waits Below (1984), Avenging Angel (1985), The Boys Next Door (1985) and KGB: The Secret War (1985).

In 1986, he had signed a film deal with Spectrafilm via his Howard International Film Group to produce and distribute three films, and also serve as a co-financing agreement on these films that were part of the Spectrafilm pact, and the move gave them a consistent theatrical distribution distributor for the first time since 1984, and the first title was PrettyKill, which Spectrafilm had domestic theatrical distribution rights, while Lorimar-Telepictures would have other world rights to the title.[16] In 1987, TV producer Fries Entertainment received a deal in which they would acquire three rights to Sandy Howard's productions overseas, on behalf of Spectrafilm and Sandy Howard Productions.[17] That year, Sandy Howard had teamed up with Australian film and video company Taimac SBS to co-produce four theatrical films that was set for release in 1988, and the first project planned in the SBS/Sandy Howard co-production agreement was Truk Lagoon, which was slated for a $7.2 million budget, but the film was never materialized.[18]

In 1993 he was seeking finance for a series of low budget films and a TV version of A Man Called Horse but was unsuccessful.[19]

Death

Howard developed Alzheimers and spent the last ten years of his life as a resident at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, in the Alzheimer's and dementia care facility, Harry's Haven. He died in 2008.[2]

Select credits

Awards

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "The returns of a man called Sandy Howard". Los Angeles. January 18, 1976. p. 26.
  2. ^ a b "Sandy Howard, 80; produced 'A Man Called Horse'" (Retrieved on May 18, 2008)
  3. ^ "The Alan Dale Show". Variety. June 9, 1948. p. 28.
  4. ^ Review of Rath Heatherton Show at Variety
  5. ^ "Producer behind A Man Called Horse dies" – CBC News (Saturday, May 17, 2008) (Retrieved on May 17, 2008)
  6. ^ "WB, Philly, kicks off Barry Grey show". Variety. September 25, 1957. p. 45.
  7. ^ "Video's Sandy Howard eyes low cost pix". Variety. December 25, 1957. p. 5.
  8. ^ "Untired blood guiding new Lesser co". Variety. July 23, 1958. p. 4.
  9. ^ "Hollywood". Variety. August 13, 1958. p. 62.
  10. ^ A.H. WEILER (October 2, 1966). "Who's Afraid Of Togetherness?: More on Movie Matters". New York Times. p. 127.
  11. ^ Borseti, Francesco (2016). It Cam from the 80s!: Interviews with 124 Cult Filmmakers. McFarland. pp. 20–39. ISBN 9781476666044.
  12. ^ a b c d Klein, Richard (December 21, 1984). "Producer Sandy Howard Buckles Under Debts , Filing Bankruptcy". Daily Variety.
  13. ^ a b Mack. (March 24, 1976). "Sky Riders". Variety.
  14. ^ "Producer Sandy Howard dies at 81". Variety. May 16, 2008.
  15. ^ "Hamilsch, Sager score again in 'Starting Over'". The Los Angeles Times. November 29, 1978. p. 13 Part 4.
  16. ^ "Spectrafilm Pacts With Howard For Trio Of Features". Variety. November 5, 1986. pp. 6, 28.
  17. ^ "Fries Entertainment Heralds Deal To Sell Howard Pics Overseas". Variety. March 11, 1987. p. 28.
  18. ^ Silverman, Marie Saxon (August 19, 1987). "Sandy Howard Eyes Down Under For Feature Coproduction Deal". Variety. pp. 6, 38.
  19. ^ "Festival a lure even with a slump in business". The Los Angeles Times. May 18, 1993. p. B7.
  20. ^ "Television chatter". Variety. July 28, 1954. p. 92.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.