RIP John Erman

John Erman Dies: Emmy Winner Who Directed For ‘Star Trek’, ‘Roots’ & ‘M*A*S*H’ Was 85

 

DEADLINE

By Erik Pederson

June 29, 2021

 

John Erman an Emmy-winning director-producer who helmed multiple episodes of such classic TV series as ‘Star Trek’, ‘M*A*S*H’ and ‘Peyton Place’ along with Part 2 of ‘Roots’ and much of its sequel miniseries ‘Roots: The Next Generations’, has died. He was 85.

A friend of Erman’s told Deadline that he died June 25 in New York City after a brief illness.

Born on August 3, 1935, in Chicago, Erman began his show business career as an actor, including an unbilled role in 1955’s “Blackboard Jungle” before working extensively as a casting director. His first job in that role was with Jim Lister at Republic Studios in New York.

He got his first shot at directing with screen tests and went on to work as a director with numerous Hollywood legends from Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland to Woody Allen, Angela Lansbury and Ann-Margret — with whom he’d have a long-running working relationship.

Erman began helming for TV in the early 1960s, working on episodes of ‘The Outer Limits’, ‘The Fugitive’ and ‘Ben Casey’. By mid-decade, he was directing multiple episodes of ‘My Favorite Martian’, ‘Please Don’t Eat the Daisies’, ‘That Girl’ and ‘The Flying Nun’, ‘Peyton Place’ and ‘The Ghost & Mrs. Muir’.

He also helmed the 1968 ‘Star Trek’ episode “The Empath” and a mid-’70s ‘M*A*S*H’ episode.

Erman continued to direct for the small screen as the TV movie and miniseries genres exploded in the mid-1970s. He earned his first 10 career Emmy nominations for “Part II” of ‘Roots’, the landmark ABC miniseries based on Alex Haley’s bestseller. Erman went on to direct three parts of the seven-part sequel ‘Roots: The Next Generations’, which ABC aired in 1979.

From there, Erman won an Emmy for directing ‘Who Will Love My Children?’ (1983) and scored nominations for ‘The Scarlett O’Hara War’ (1980), ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1984), ‘An Early Fros’t (1986) — and the first TV movie concerning the AIDS crisis — ‘The Two Mrs. Grenvilles’ (1987), ‘The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank’ (1988) and ‘David’ (1989). He also earned three Emmy noms as a producer, for ‘The Hiding of Anne Frank’, ‘David’ and ‘Breathing Lessons’ (1994).

Erman also won DGA Awards for ‘Roots and ‘An Early Frost’and was nominated for ‘Who Will Love My Children?’ He earned a pair of awards for telefilm ‘The Blackwater Lightship’ at the 2004 Monte-Carlo TV Festival.

ERMAN, John

Born: 8/3/1935, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 6/25/2021, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

 

John Erman's western - producer, director:

Stoney Burke (TV) - 1962, 1963

RIP Cynthia Hargrave

Cynthia Hargrave, Producer of Wes Anderson’s Debut ‘Bottle Rocket,’ Dies at 64

Hargrave also exec produced 1997’s “Hurricane Streets”

 

The Wrap

By Umberto Gonzalez

June 28, 2021

 

Award-winning film producer Cynthia Hargrave, who produced Wes Anderson’s debut feature film, “Bottle Rocket,” passed away on June 9 from complications of systemic scleroderma. She was 64.

Hargrave was the first producer to leverage a Sundance Film Festival short film into a Hollywood studio feature with Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket” from 1993, starring Owen and Luke Wilson. In addition to producing the original short, she was a producer on the subsequent 1996 feature of the same name, now regarded as an indie classic.

“When Bob Wilson introduced me and his sons Owen, Luke, and Andrew to Kit Carson and Cynthia Hargrave thirty years ago, he introduced us to the pathway to the rest of our lives,” Anderson said in a statement. “We think of both of our old friends often and very fondly, and we send our condolences to all of Cynthia’s closest friends and family.”

Hargrave also executive produced Morgan J. Freeman’s 1997 debut feature, “Hurricane Streets,” which was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and was the first film to ever win three awards at the festival.

Other producing credits include Michael Rymer’s 2001 film “Perfume,” which featured an ensemble cast including Jeff Goldblum and Rita Wilson, and “Bullfighter,” which was the directorial debut of Danish filmmaker Rune Bendixen and starred Willem Dafoe, Olivier Martinez, Michelle Forbes and Jared Harris. “Bullfighter” also featured cameos from Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez.

Hargrave also served as a production consultant on feature films, most recently Roland Emmerich’s “Midway” and Jon Avnet’s “Righteous Kill,” starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.

Hargrave was a native of Los Angeles who graduated with a B.S. in business from California State University, Northridge. Her early work included a job as a tour accountant for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and she met screenwriter and actor L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) while working for entertainment business manager Stan Nugit. Hargrave and Carson married in New York City in 1988, and they worked together and remained married until Carson’s death in 2014.

Hargrave is survived by her companion of six years, Eddy Burnet

 

HARGRAVE, Cynthia

Born: 1957, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 6/9/2021, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Cynthia Hargrave’s western – music supervisor:

Bullfighter - 2000

RIP John Langley

 ‘Cops’ creator John Langley dies during road race in Mexico

 

Associated Press

By Andrew Dalton

June 27, 2021

LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Langley creator of the long-running TV series “Cops,” has died during a road race in Mexico, a family spokeswoman said.

Langley died in Baja, Mexico, of an apparent heart attack Saturday during the Coast to Coast Ensenada-San Felipe 250 off-road race, family spokeswoman Pam Golum said. He was 78.

“Cops” was among the first reality series on the air when it debuted in 1989, and it would become an institution through 32 seasons. Langley and production partner Malcolm Barbour had shopped the idea for years, and found a home for it on the fledgling Fox network.

The show was famous for following police, from deputies in the Deep South to officers from big city police departments, on long, boring nights in patrol cars or in fevered foot chases.

Its quirks, including its often shirtless suspects and its reggae theme song “Bad Boys,” were frequent fodder for standup comics and were often referenced in films, TV shows and songs.

It ran on Fox until 2013, when Viacom-owned Spike TV, later re-branded as The Paramount Network, picked it up.

It came under criticism for what was considered a slanted, pro-police perspective, and was permanently pulled from the air by Paramount last year during worldwide protests over the killing of George Floyd.

Some versions of the show still air internationally in syndication.

Langley was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Los Angeles. He graduated from California State University, Dominguez Hills and served in the U.S. Army in the early 1960s.

Langley was also a producer on the 2009 film “Brooklyn’s Finest,” directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Richard Gere and Don Cheadle, and on the non-fiction series “Jail,” “Vegas Strip” and “Anatomy of a Crime.”

He was an off-road racing enthusiast and frequently drove in events like the one he took part in Saturday.

Langley is survived by his son and producing partner Morgan, who oversees their company Langley Productions; another son, Zak; two daughters, Sara Langley Dews and Jennifer Blair; his wife, Maggie, and seven grandchildren.

LANGLEY, John (John Russell Langley)

Born: 6/1/1943, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.A.

Died: 6/26/2021, Baja California, Mexico

 

John Langley’s western – executive producer:

Gunfighter’s Moon – 1995