[msb-alumni] Joel Schumacher, 80, Director of Milestone Films in '80s and '90s, Dies
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2020 16:47:15 -0400
BlankJoel Schumacher, 80, Director of Milestone Films in '80s and '90s, Dies.
By Dave
Itzkoff.
His movies, which also included "The Lost Boys" and "Batman & Robin," were
cinematic
mileposts of the 1980s and '90s.
Joel Schumacher, the director whose visually inventive and sometimes subversive
movies -- including the coming-of-age drama "St. Elmo's Fire," the vampire
action-comedy "The Lost Boys" and the campy superhero caper "Batman and Robin"
--
became cultural mile markers of the 1980s and '90s, died on Monday in New York
City.
He was 80 . The cause was cancer, with which he had been struggling for about a
year,
Bebe Lerner, a spokeswoman for his family, said in a statement.
After satiating a youthful appetite for illicit drugs, Mr. Schumacher found
more
constructive outlets as a window designer for New York department stores like
Henri
Bendel. And after arriving in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, he worked as a
costume
designer on films like the crime drama "The Last of Sheila" and Woody Allen's
"Sleeper" (both from 1973), then graduated to directorial assignments for
television
and motion pictures. In his movies, Mr. Schumacher helped elevate emerging
talents,
assembling actors like Judd Nelson, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe and
Emilio
Estevez for "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985) in a group that came to be called the Brat
Pack.
He made bold sartorial choices in his films as well. Some, like the punk-rock
outfits
of his young vampires in "The Lost Boys" (1987), advanced fashion trends;
others,
like the articulated nipples on the Batsuit in "Batman and Robin" (1997), did
not.
Mr. Schumacher worked steadily for decades, directing thrillers like "A Time to
Kill"
(1996), "Phone Booth" (2002) and "Trespass" (2011). Yet he saw himself as
dispensable
in the eyes of the industry he served, where a single perceived misstep can end
a
career.
"Film making is like mountain climbing," he told The New York Times in 1993.
"No
matter how many times you've climbed, you can still fall off. Even if you've
climbed
Everest seven times, the eighth time can be your last."
Joel Schumacher was born on Aug. 29, 1939, to Francis and Marian Schumacher.
His
father, a Baptist from Knoxville, Tenn., died when Joel was 4, and he was
raised in
Long Island City, Queens, by his mother, who was Jewish and had come from
Sweden. (As
Joel Schumacher said of himself, "I'm an American mongrel.")
Mr. Schumacher said he began drinking at the age of 9 and spent his formative
years
abusing L.S.D., methedrine and other drugs. But he found steady work as a
window
dresser (Macy's, Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue also hired him) and
studied for
a time at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He later graduated with honors
from
the Parsons School of Design.
When his mother died in 1965, Mr. Schumacher felt he had hit bottom.
"My life seemed like a joke," he told The Times. "I was living in this criminal
environment. I was $50,000 in debt. I had lost six teeth. I weighed 130 pounds."
Yet by 1970 he had stopped taking drugs and was employed at Bendel, the luxury
goods
emporium on Fifth Avenue, where, he said, he rebuilt his life.
"I got my self-respect back getting a good day's pay for a good day's work," he
said.
In Hollywood, his costume-design work, beginning with the 1972 drama "Play It
as It
Lays" (directed by Frank Perry, and written by Joan Didion and John Gregory
Dunne),
gave him a foothold in filmmaking and screenwriting. He went on to write the
screenplays for the musical drama "Sparkle" and the comedy "Car Wash," both
released
in 1976, and for Sidney Lumet's 1978 adaptation of the musical "The Wiz."
Mr. Schumacher earned his first directorial credits with TV movies: "Virginia
Hill"
(1974), starring Dyan Cannon as the title character and Harvey Keitel as her
gangster
boyfriend, Bugsy Siegel; and "Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill" (1979),
an
ensemble comedy-drama set at a country-western roadhouse.
His first feature film, the Lily Tomlin comedy "The Incredible Shrinking
Woman,"
opened to mixed reviews in 1981. After directing the 1983 comedy "D.C. Cab,"
Mr.
Schumacher found greater acclaim with "St. Elmo's Fire," about the postcollege
meanderings of a group of friends from Georgetown University. That drama was a
hit,
powered by the performances of at least a half-dozen future screen heartthrobs,
an
earnest musical theme by David Foster and the bombastic title track "St. Elmo's
Fire
(Man in Motion)," sung by John Parr.
So, too, was "The Lost Boys," which pit Jason Patric and Corey Haim against a
gang of
young bloodsuckers led by Kiefer Sutherland.
Still other hits included the supernatural thriller "Flatliners" (1990), which
starred Mr. Sutherland and Julia Roberts, and his 1991 romantic drama "Dying
Young,"
which starred Roberts and Campbell Scott.
After directing "Falling Down" (1993) with Michael Douglas and "The Client"
(1994),
adapted from the John Grisham novel, Mr. Schumacher was chosen to take over
Warner
Brothers' then-nascent Batman franchise from the director Tim Burton, who was
perceived to have taken the superhero movies in an increasingly gothic (and
hence,
uncommercial) direction. Mr. Schumacher fared well enough with his
candy-colored
entry "Batman Forever" (1995), which grossed more than $336 million worldwide,
though
he would later call its leading man, Val Kilmer, "psychotic" in a 2019
interview with
Vulture.
But the 1997 follow-up, "Batman and Robin," starring George Clooney as the
Caped
Crusader, was somewhat less successful. Widely panned, it grossed about $238
million
globally.
At his death Mr. Schumacher lived in Greenwich Village. Information on his
survivors
was not immediately available.
Speaking to Vice in a 2017 interview, Mr. Schumacher apologized for "Batman and
Robin," saying that he had never intended to make so-called Hollywood tent-pole
movies, moneymakers that can support an entire studio.
"My other films were much smaller and had just found success with the audience
and
not often with the critics, which is really why we wrote them," he said. "And
then
after "Batman and Robin," I was scum. It was like I had murdered a baby."
Even so, Mr. Schumacher was not ostracized from filmmaking; his output remained
constant, as did his passion for the movies he made.
"I spent so much time as a kid in the movies in Long Island City," he told The
Times
in 1993. "There's something about being that kid in a dark theater and growing
up and
cutting these films in dark editing rooms and putting them out in dark theaters
where
people can connect to them. I somehow feel connected with humanity when I
create
humanity on that screen."
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