LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Oscar-nominated Hollywood producer Lawrence Turman died on Saturday, July 1, at the age of 96 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills. The legendary producer’s family announced the tragic news. Turman had served as the chair of the Peter Stark Producing program at USC from 1991 to 2021 till his retirement at the age of 94.
Turman is survived by a large family including three sons, John, Andrew and Peter; four grandchildren, Audrey Suzanne, Carter Isaac, Georgia Simone, Olivia Veranique; and two nieces, Katherine and Suzanna. It is said that a service will be held at Motion Picture Hall later.
Who was Lawrence Turman?
Turman was born in 1926 and graduated from UCLA. His first connection with Hollywood happened when he responded to an ad published in Variety Magazine for a job at the Kurt Frings agency. In the early days of his career, he represented actors and was able to cast his four agency clients in ‘North By Northwest’ through Ernest Lehman.
Later on, he moved into producing movies. He formed Turman Foster Company with David Foster in 1972 and produced films such as ‘Heroes', ‘The Drowning Pool', ‘The Thing', ‘Caveman', ‘Running Scared' and ‘The River Wild'.
Turman also went on to produce Judy Garland’s last film, ‘I Could Go On Singing’. Some of the other iconic films produced by him are ‘The Best Man,’ ‘The Great White Hope’, ‘Pretty Poison’ and ‘American History X’. His Hollywood career continued till the 2000s, when he was associated with films such as ‘Miracle on the Mountain: The Kincaid Family Story’ for TV, ‘Kingdom Come’, ‘What's the Worst That Could Happen?’ He last produced ‘The Thing’ in 2011.
Turman also directed films such as ‘Second Thoughts’ and ‘Marriage of a Young Stockbroker.’ He was a member of the Producers Guild Hall of Fame and was a part of the Producers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was the director of The Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California. On Season 4 of the web series ‘On Cinema’, he appeared as a guest critic in 2014. He is also a writer as he published a book, ‘So You Want to be a Producer’, in which he narrated his journey in Hollywood.
'The Graduate'
The Hollywood icon is best remembered for his magnum opus, ‘The Graduate’. The story of the movie's making is dramatic in itself. After finding Charles Webb’s novel, ‘The Graduate’, he went on to sign director Mike Nichols. Nichols was the former comedy partner of Elaine May and was basking in the success of the Broadway play, ‘Barefoot in the Park’. Turman told Vanity Fair in 2008, “Mike Nichols was an intuitive hunch. Webb’s book is funny but mordant. Nichols and May’s humor seemed like a hand-in-glove fit to me.”
Turman recalled telling Nichols, “I have the book, but I don’t have any money. I don’t have any studio. I have nothing, so let’s do this. We’ll make this movie together, and whatever money comes in, we’ll split 50-50.” While the director was ready, they could not find anyone to fund them. After getting turned down for two years, Turman convinced Joseph E Levine at Embassy Pictures to fund the film. The script too had a change when he included Buck Henry. Finally a then-unknown Dustin Hoffman was to play the eponymous character. The film went on to rake in $35M in the box office at a budget of $3M. The film received seven nominations, with Nichols winning Best Director.
In a 2017 interview, Turman said, “I was famous after The Graduate for about 20 minutes. It’s nice to get a better table at the restaurant, but basically, that doesn’t motivate me."
'Very sad to see that Lawrence Turman passed away'
'Better Call Saul' writer Peter Gould tweeted, "Very sad to see that #LawrenceTurman passed away. A truly creative producer with wonderful, eclectic taste, Larry was my boss at USC. He will be missed!" Another person wrote, "It's a shame. There's no room in the Oscar's In Memoriam segment for white dudes, anymore." Another wrote, "RIP.
Another fan wrote on Facebook, "Oscar-nominated producer, Lawrence Turman (THE GRADUATE) died on Saturday, aged 96. Rest easy."
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