Norman Jewison - Rotten Tomatoes Celebrity Profile

Biography

This page uses content from the Norman Jewison biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, BA, LL.D (born July 21, 1926) is a Canadian film director, producer, and actor.

He was born and raised in Toronto and attended Victoria College, in the University of Toronto. After service in the Navy during World War II, in the early part of the 1950s he embarked on a trip through the southern United States, where he was appalled by the open racism and inequality. This experience gave him a lifelong concern with racial issues and discrimination that can be clearly seen in many of his films, including his most acclaimed, In the Heat of the Night.

Interestingly, despite his surname and his fame for directing the film version of Fiddler on the Roof and The Statement, he is not actually Jewish, but instead of British Protestant descent.

In 1981, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1991. In 1988, Jewison founded the Canadian Film Centre, an advanced film and television training institute located in Toronto, Ontario. He has been nominated for the best director Academy Award on a number of occasions, but has never won. In 1998, he was awarded The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, awarded periodically at the Academy Awards ceremonies to "Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production." For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Norman Jewison has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 7000 Hollywood Blvd. and has been inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

Despite much conjecture that Jewison was "forced out" of directing the movie, Malcolm X, Spike Lee avows on the DVD's commentary that Jewison gracefully bowed out after Lee had argued his case in a meeting with both Jewison and producer Marvin Worth. Spike Lee has expressed his gratitude extensively, " He (Jewison) gracefully bowed out, which he didn't have to do. I will forever be grateful to him for that." Interview with Spike Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005. [1]

In 2004, Norman Jewison published his autobiography titled This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me. The month following the book's launch, on November 26, his wife Margaret Ann (Dixie) Jewison, died due to undisclosed causes a day after her 74th birthday in Orangeville, Ontario. She had been a source of inspiration for Jewison's film making career.

Filmography

As director:

40 Pounds of Trouble (1963)
The Thrill of It All (1963)
Send Me No Flowers (1964)
The Art of Love (1965)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Gaily, Gaily (1969)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Film) (1973)
Rollerball (1975)
F.I.S.T. (1978)
...And Justice for All (1979)
Best Friends (1982)
A Soldier's Story (1984)
Agnes of God (1985)
Moonstruck (1987)
In Country (1989)
Other People's Money (1991)
Only You (1994)
Bogus (1996)
The Hurricane (1999)
Dinner with Friends (2001) (TV)
Walter and Henry (2001) (TV)
The Statement (2003)

Honours

Canadian Honour System

Officer of the Order of Canada (1982)
Companion of the Order of Canada (1992)
125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal (1992)
Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Medal (2002)

Other Canadian Awards

Governor General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement (1992)

Courtney Goes Wild (2000)

Film Awards

Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1999)

External links

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.