Veteran executive producer Bryant Ewing, best known for his tenure at Ultramedia Productions and then its successor shop Luna Pier Films with bases of operation in Detroit, Santa Monica and New York, died on Monday, Feb. 21, at the age of 70.
Ewing had a successful run with Ultramedia and Luna Pier before moving back to his native Michigan from the West Coast in 1993. He had a hand in developing assorted directorial careers, including those of Greg Pike, Gordon MacAlister, Bill Scarlet, Blair Hayes and Phil Morrison. The latter was Luna Pier’s first New York-based director.
Ewing was also active in the postproduction arena, having been one of the founders of edit/post house Postique in Southfield, Mich., before it went on to become part of the Grace & Wild family of companies.
Ewing is survived by his life companion, Suzanne Kuecken, son Jason, siblings Bettina and Kendall Ewing, nephews and nieces Joe, Jacob and Kristin Schmidt and Samantha and Lindsay Maitre, as well as a maternal figure in his life, Nettie Kuecken (Suzanne’s mom).
Services will be held on Friday, Feb. 25, at First United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Mich. Visitation begins at 10 a.m. and the funeral service is slated to start at 11 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations (write “In Memory of Bryant Ewing” in memo line) be made to Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Fund #028184, MGH Development Office, 165 Cambridge St., Suite 600, Boston, MA 02114.
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More