Norman Jewison, acclaimed Canadian director of ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and ‘Moonstruck’, dies at 97

NEW YORK (AP) – Norman JewThe acclaimed and versatile Canadian-born director whose Hollywood films ranged from Doris Day comedies and “Moonstruck” to social dramas like the Oscar-winning “In the Heat of the Night,” has died at age 97.

Jew, a three-time Oscar nominee who received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 1999, died “peacefully” on Saturday, according to publicist Jeff Sanderson. Additional details were not immediately available.

Throughout his long career, Jew he combined light entertainment with topical films that appealed to him on a deeply personal level. As Jew He was finishing his military service in the Canadian navy during World War II, hitchhiked through the American South and got an up-close view of Jim Crow segregation. In his autobiography “This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me,” he noted that racism and injustice became his most common themes.

“Any time a movie deals with racism, many Americans feel uncomfortable,” he wrote. “However, you have to face it. We have to deal with prejudice and injustice or we will never understand what good and evil, right and wrong are; We need to feel how “the other” feels.

He drew on his experiences for 1967’s “In the Heat of the Night,” starring Rod Steiger as a racist white small-town sheriff and Sidney Poitier as a black Philadelphia detective who tries to help solve a murder and eventually form a hostile working relationship with local law enforcement officer.

James Baldwin condemned the film’s “appalling distance from reality” and thought the director was trapped in a fantasy of racial harmony that would only increase “the anger and despair of the Negroes.” But the New York Times’ Bosley Crowther was among the critics who found the film powerful and inspiring, and in a year that featured such milestones as “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde,” JewThe production won the Academy Award for best picture, while Steiger took home the Oscar for best actor. (Jew lost the best director award to Mike Nichols of “The Graduate”).

Among those who encouraged Jew while making “In the Heat of the Night”: Robert F. Kennedy, whom the director met during a ski trip in Sun Valley, Idaho.

“I told him I made movies and he asked me what kind I made,” he recalled in a 2011 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Then I told him that he was working on ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and that it was about two police officers: one, a white sheriff from Mississippi and the other, a black detective from Philadelphia. I told him it was a film about tolerance. So he listened, nodded and said, “You know, Norman, time is everything. In politics, in art, in life itself.’ I never forgot it.”

She received two more Oscar nominations, for “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Moonstruck,” the beloved romantic comedy for which Cher won an Academy Award for best actress. He also worked on such notable films as the Cold War parody “The Russian Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” the Steve McQueen thriller “The Thomas Crown Affair” and a pair of films starring Denzel Washington: the racial drama ” “A Soldier’s Story.” ” and “The Hurricane,” starring Washington as wrongfully imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter.

A third project with Washington never came to pass. In the early 1990s, Jew He was scheduled to direct a biopic of Malcolm X, but backed out amid protests from Spike Lee and others that a white director should not make the film. Lee ended up directing.

Five Jew The films that received the best Oscar nominations were: “In the Heat of the Night”, “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Moonstruck” and “A Soldier’s Story.”

Jew and his wife Margaret Ann Dixon (nicknamed Dixie) had three sons, Kevin and Michael and daughter Jennifer Ann, who became an actress and appeared in the film. Jew movies “Agnes of God” and “Best Friends.” He JewThey were married for 51 years, until his death in 2004. He married Lynne St. David in 2010.

Jew, honored by Canada in 2003 with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, remained close to his home country. When he was not working, he lived on a 200-acre farm near Toronto, where he raised horses and cattle and produced maple syrup. He founded the Canadian Film Center in 1988 and for years hosted barbecues during the Toronto Film Festival.

The one born in Toronto Jew He began performing at age 6, appearing before meetings of Masonic lodges. After graduating from Victoria College, she worked for the BBC in London, then returned to Canada and directed programs for the CBC. His work there brought him offers from Hollywood and he quickly gained a reputation as a director of television musicals, with stars such as Judy Garland, Danny Kaye and Harry Belafonte. Jew He moved on to film in 1963 with the comedy “40 Pounds of Trouble,” starring Tony Curtis and Suzanne Pleshette.

The director’s light touch led Universal to assign him to a series of comedies, including “The Thrill of It All,” which paired Day with James Garner, and “Send Me No Flowers,” starring Day and Rock Hudson. Tired of such scripts, Jew took advantage of a loophole in his contract to move to MGM to film 1965’s “The Cincinnati Kid,” a gambling drama starring McQueen and Edward G. Robinson. He followed up with “The Russian Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” starring Carl Reiner and Eva Marie Saint and which was the breakthrough film for Alan Arkin.

His other films included “FIST,” a flop with Sylvester Stallone as a Jimmy Hoffa-style union leader; “…And Justice for All” (1979), with Al Pacino fighting a corrupt judicial system; and “In Country,” in which Bruce Willis plays a Vietnam War veteran. His most recent work, the 2003 thriller “The Statement,” starring Michael Caine and Tilda Swinton, flopped at the box office.

“I never became as much a part of the establishment as I wanted,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011. “I wanted to be accepted. I wanted people to say “that was a great movie.” I mean I have a big ego like anyone else. I am not a shrinking violet. But I never felt totally accepted, but maybe that’s a good thing.”

The late AP Entertainment writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.