John Daly, the British-born producer of 13 Oscar-winning movies including “Platoon” and “The Last Emperor” who helped launch the careers of many A-list directors and actors, has died. He was 71.
Daly, who was chairman of Film and Music Entertainment Inc., died Friday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after struggling with cancer, said his daughter, Jenny Daly.
Over a career that spanned four decades, Daly helped to produce films that earned 13 Oscars for Best Picture and 21 Oscar nominations, as well as numerous Golden Globes and other awards.
Daly’s companies boosted the career starts of seminal directors such as Oliver Stone (“Platoon,” ”Salvador”), Bernardo Bertolucci (“The Last Emperor”) and Robert Altman (“Images”), as well as actors Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves and Julia Roberts.
“John was truly a giant in the industry who changed filmmaking for the better,” said Lawrence Lotman, chief financial officer and acting chief executive officer of Film and Music Entertainment Inc., in a statement.
Born in London, Daly joined with British actor David Hemmings in 1967 to form Hemdale, a company that managed rock bands such as Yes and Black Sabbath.
Hemdale later became a leading independent film producer and distributor in Great Britain with movies such as “Tommy,” according to a biography issued by Film and Music Entertainment Inc.
Under Daly’s stewardship, Hemdale produced more than 100 films that grossed more than $1.5 billion.
Since 2003, Daly had been at the helm of Film and Music Entertainment Inc. In 2004, he produced, co-wrote and directed “The Aryan Couple,” starring Martin Landau, which received awards at film festivals around the world.
He is survived by three sons, Michael, Julian and Timothy, and one daughter.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More