Joseph E. Levine | |
|---|---|
 Levine in 1976 | |
| Born | Joseph Edward Levine (1905-09-09)September 9, 1905 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | July 31, 1987(1987-07-31) (aged 81) Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Producer, film distributor |
| Years active | 1937–1987 |
| Known for | Embassy Pictures |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Joseph Edward Levine (September 9, 1905 – July 31, 1987) was an American film distributor, financier and producer. At the time of his death, it was said he was involved in one or another capacity with 497 films. Levine was responsible for the American releases ofGodzilla, King of the Monsters!,Attila andHercules, which helped revolutionize American film marketing, and was founder and president ofEmbassy Pictures.[1]
Levine's biggest hit was directorMike Nichols'The Graduate (1967), ablockbuster hit that was considered, then and now, a watershed film that inaugurated theNew Hollywood and madeDustin Hoffman asuperstar. At the time of its release,The Graduate became one of theTop Ten All-Time Box Office hits. With the great success of the film, Levine sold his company to the conglomerateAvco, though he continued on as the CEO of the renamed Avco-Embassy film production division.
Other films produced and/or financed by Levine includedTwo Women (1960),Contempt (1963),The 10th Victim (1965),Marriage Italian Style (1964),The Lion in Winter (1968),The Producers (1968),Carnal Knowledge (1971) andThe Night Porter (1974). After leaving Avco-Embassy, he became an independent again, producingA Bridge Too Far (1977).
Levine was born in a slum inBoston, Massachusetts, on September 9, 1905. The youngest of six children of aRussian-Jewish[2] immigrant tailor, Joe did whatever work he could to help support his mother, a widow who had remarried only to have her second husband abandon her. This led Joe (in his later years) to tell an interviewer that he had known (in his words) "not one happy day" growing up. At 14 years of age he was hired for full-time work in a dress factory and left school, never to re-enroll.
In the 1920s, in partnership with two of his older brothers, Joe opened a basement dress shop, whose stock the Levine brothers obtained on consignment. He had multiple other jobs and operated the Cafe Wonderbar in Boston'sBack Bay during this period and during the early and mid-1930s.[3]
In 1937, Levine encountered Rosalie Harrison, then a singer withRudy Vallee's band, and left the restaurant business for her; within a week of their engagement, at Harrison's insistence, Levine sold the Cafe Wonderbar. They married the following year and moved toNew Haven, Connecticut, where Joe bought, and commenced to run, a movie theater. Eventually, he became a successful, if small-time, distributor and exhibitor throughout New England, buying "decrepit" Westerns at low rates for his theaters, which eventually totalled seven, including threedrive-ins.[4]
One of Levine's most unusual successes wasBody Beautiful, a sex-hygiene film which he saw drawing a line of prospective ticket-buyers who were braving a snowstorm to that end. He later remembered buying it to show in his theaters because "it made me sick." He was also a representative forBurstyn-Mayer distributing Italian films such asRoberto Rossellini'sRome, Open City (1945) andPaisà (1946), andVittorio De Sica'sBicycle Thieves (1948).[4]
TheSecond World War inspired Levine to promote the filmRavaged Earth, which had been shot in China, with pro-American, anti-Japanese rhetoric. Renting theShubert Theater in his native Boston, he spent large sums of money on film advertisements that he wrote himself; the wording reflected then-prevailing anti-Japanese sentiments of the war era.Nan Robertson's obituary of Levine quotes one of the slogans as reading: "Jap Rats Stop at Nothing – See This. It Will Make You Fighting Mad."
During the 1950s, he became an area sub-distributor for newly-formedAmerican International Pictures.[4] In 1956, Levine bought the Australian filmWalk Into Paradise; after it generated low box-office revenue, he retitled the filmWalk Into Hell, which brought box-office success.[5] Levine discovered that double features with overlapping cast members or similar titles generated higher box-office revenue; he began the practice of screening two films with similar titles on one bill.
In the 1960s he built two cinemas on 57th Street in New York City – the Lincoln Art Theatre and the Festival Theatre.[4]
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He entered film production in 1945, co-producing with Maxwell Finn the nostalgic feature filmGaslight Follies, a four-part compilation ofsilent film clips with such stars asCharlie Chaplin andDouglas Fairbanks; a roundup of newsreel highlights; a condensed version of the 1935 featureThe Drunkard; and the 1915Alan Hale romanceEast Lynne. With each section narrated by different commentators --Ben Grauer,John B. Kennedy, andMilton Cross andEthel Owen) -- the individual parts could also be shown separately as short subjects.Gaslight Follies was released through Levine's own company,Embassy Pictures.[4]
In 1956, Levine achieved great financial success distributing the Japanesemonster filmGodzilla to American theaters, acquiring the rights for $12,000. Spending $400,000 on marketing and promoting it under the titleGodzilla, King of the Monsters!, the picture earned $1 million intheatrical rentals.[4] He then made a $100,000 deal to bring the 1954 French-Italian filmAttila to the United States in 1958 and spent $600,000 promoting it, which returned $2 million in rentals.[4] His breakthrough came the following year withHercules, starringSteve Reeves and released byRKO Pictures Levine invested $120,000 ondubbing,sound effects, and new titles and spent $1.25 million on promoting the film. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year, with rentals of $4.7 million.[4]
Levine's Embassy Pictures began dealing inart films, often of European origin, in the 1960s. During that decade, he reached the peak of his prestige, which he sustained into the 1970s.
In 1961, after seeing no more than three minutes of its "rushes", Levine bought North American distribution rights forTwo Women, which originated in Italy. He was credited as Executive Producer of the film, which was based on anovella written byAlberto Moravia. The film was directed byVittorio de Sica and starredSophia Loren andEleanora Brown, who acted out the respective roles of a mother and her young daughter who had been displaced from their home during World War II. One scene of the film depictedMoroccan soldiers raping the mother and daughter. Levine's promotional campaign focused on one still photograph, which showed Loren, as the mother, wearing a torn dress, kneeling in the dirt, and weeping with rage and grief. Predicting that she would win theAcademy Award for her performance, Levine brought Loren to the United States for interviews, bought space for, and placed, large advertisements in newspapers, and saw to it thatTwo Women appeared in the cities of residence of Academy Award jury members. Levine's efforts paid off when Loren became the firstcast member of a foreign-language film to win theAcademy Award for Best Actress.
In 1963, Levine was offered a $30 million deal withParamount Pictures (making him a majorshareholder) to produce films in the genres of his previous successes. Paramount would finance the films and Embassy would receive part of its profits.[6] Following the deal, Levine paid best-selling authorHarold Robbins $900,000 for the rights to three books, which were filmed:The Carpetbaggers (1964),Where Love Has Gone (1964) andNevada Smith (1966).
Carroll Baker, then a contract player forParamount Pictures, portrayed a hedonistic widow inThe Carpetbaggers. After the film became a huge hit, Levine made Baker his personalprotege, actively promoting her career and attempting to refashion her image, which caused the actress to be denigrated as Levine's "blonde bomb sell"[7] (a play on "bombshell"). ForThe Carpetbaggers Baker had shot anude scene that was edited out of the US release; however, the scene was the subject of wide-spread publicity.[8] A 1964New York Times article quoted Baker defending the scene. Speaking of her character, she said:
“She is alone in front of her dressing table. She has just stepped out of the bath and she is the kind of character to whom it would not occur to put on a robe. Doing the scene in the nude was my idea and I think it was a mistake not to show it.”
Levine cast Baker in thepotboilerSylvia, in which she again appeared nude. He then cast Baker in thetitle role of the ill-fated actress, andHollywood's original blonde bombshell,Jean Harlow in the biopicHarlow (1965).Sylvia received negative reviews and did poorly at the box office, whileHarlow, also a critical failure and released against a rivalHarlow movie starringCarol Lynley, flopped despite significant pre-publicity.[9] TheHarlow publicity campaign even had Baker featured in an advertisement forFoster Grant sunglasses inLIFE Magazine with stills from the movie.[10]
Relations between Baker and Levine deteriorated. In a 1965 interview, Baker sardonically commented: "I'll say this about Joe Levine: I admire his taste in leading ladies", which led the press to suspect a rift between the actress and producer.[11] Baker sued Levine in 1966 over her contract with Paramount,[12] and she was soon fired by the studio and had her paychecks fromHarlow frozen amid the contentious legal dispute. Baker went hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt, though eventually she was awarded $1 million in compensation.[9]
In an interview withRex Reed in his bookPeople Are Crazy Here (1974), Baker revealed that she had felt pressure in both her working relationship with Levine, and her domestic life with her husband, who she said wanted to maintain an expensive lifestyle:
"We'd been very poor when we started out at the Actors Studio in New York. I was under contract to Joe Levine, who was going around giving me diamonds and behaving like he owned me. I never slept with him or anything, but everyone thought I was his mistress."
Baker relocated to Italy in 1966. She told Reed that her dispute with Paramount and Levine effectively resulted in her being blacklisted by Hollywood.
In the Levine produced filmThe Oscar, one of the characters, a blonde movie star played byJean Hagen as aharpy, is namedCheryl Barker, a dig at Baker.[7]
Levine signedMike Nichols, one of the most in-demand directors on Broadway, to directThe Graduate (1967) before Nichols made his feature film debut withWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).[4]The Graduate became thehighest-grossing film of 1967. Levine hired the established comedian, but first-time director,Mel Brooks to makeThe Producers (1967).[4] Levine said, "I have a knack for betting on unknown directors and actors and getting my money's worth".[1] The same year, Levine sold Embassy toAvco for $40 million but stayed on aschief executive officer.[4] He later called the sale a "horrible mistake which made me rich".[13]The Lion in Winter (1968), Levine's favorite of his films, won anAcademy Award for lead actressKatharine Hepburn.[4][1]
After the sale to Avco, Levine's films were less commercially successful, except for Mike Nichols'Carnal Knowledge (1971) andA Touch of Class (1973), which was his last hit.[4] Levine resigned from Avco Embassy in 1974 and formed Joseph E. Levine Presents and spent two-and-a-half years makingA Bridge Too Far (1977) with his son Richard. His last film wasTattoo (1981).[4]
In April 1964,David Susskind,Daniel Melnick, and Levine took over as producers for the Broadway musicalKelly. Levine financed $250,000 of the $400,000 budget, with the balance coming fromColumbia Records and six other investors. The producers also acquired the motion picture rights.[14]
Directed and choreographed byHerbert Ross, the musical began previews at theBroadhurst Theatre on February 1, 1965, and opened (and closed) on February 6 after seven previews and one performance,[15] becoming one of the biggest flops in Broadway history.[4]
Industry representatives quoted inThe New York Times stated they "could not recall any other Broadway musical representing such a comparable expenditure that became a casualty so quickly." Costs had ballooned to $650,000, with the biggest loser being Levine, followed by Melnick and Susskind, who had invested a total of $150,000. There had been increasing arguments between the producers and writers, with Susskind complaining that the authors were unwilling to make changes per the recommendations of the investors. Charlap and Lawrence were so upset with changes that they filed suit inNew York Supreme Court seeking an injunction to prevent the play from opening. While the judge urged that the parties pursue arbitration, lawyers representing Charlap and Lawrence were threatening to sue for damages that had been caused through "unauthorized changes, omissions and additions" made to the musical.[16]
Levine became famous in the industry for his massive advertising campaigns, starting withHercules in 1959. Levine had hired Terry Turner, who had been a formerRKO Pictures exploitation expert of the late 1920s and 1930s, where he had exploitedKing Kong amongst other films.[17] Levine's and Turner's exploitation campaigns were designed to appeal both to the general public and to the film industry and exhibitors.[17]The Adventurers (1970) had a special "airborne world premiere", as thein-flight movie of aTWABoeing 747 Superjet making its premiere voyage, flying from New York to Los Angeles, with the film's stars and members of the press aboard. It marked the first time that a movie and a plane premiered in the same event.[18][19]
In 1964, Levine received theGolden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award from theHollywood Foreign Press Association in recognition of his lifetime achievement in motion pictures.
Levine was hospitalized on June 21, 1987, and died the following month on July 31 inGreenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 81. His known survivors, in addition to his widow Rosalie, included his son Richard, his daughter Tricia, and two grandchildren.[3][4]
