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Michael Ritchie Memorial
Director John Landis reads tribute to Michael Ritchie
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Michael Ritchie's films of communities in flux--campaign-mapping politicos in The Candidate, aspiring beauty queens in Smile and sports players in Downhill Racer, The Bad News Bears and Semi-Tough--remain touchstones of the American cinema and insightful glimpses into national popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s.
On May 6 the movie community showed its appreciation for Ritchie, who died April 16 of cancer, at a memorial service at the Directors Guild of America.
His widow, Jimmie Ritchie, and other family members, his fellow directors and DGA members as well as actors, agents, producers and friends gathered to share Ritchie stories and warmly recall his directorial techniques and methods.
"Michael directed me in The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom," said Holly Hunter. "I can say without hesitation that it was the most fun I've ever had on a movie set.
"Michael was an actor's director... Michael trusted actors, he trusted our instincts. He's very, very quiet, very discreet, and never rushed the crew in public. I think Michael was truly charmed by actors. I'm going to miss him an awful lot," Hunter added.
That acclaimed 1993 torn-from-the-headlines film won Hunter an Emmy Award as best actress and won Ritchie a DGA Award for best direction of a movie for television. DGA President Jack Shea, who introduced the informal memorial, told the gathering "Michael was proud to be in the Guild," and extolled the New York-based director's service on the Guild's National Board and on the Eastern Directors Council.
Actor/Director Tim Matheson recalls Ritchie
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Director John Landis served as master of ceremonies, and he and other friends recalled Ritchie as a great family man and one of many humors. Richard Romanus, who was cast by Ritchie in The Couch Trip and Cops and Robbersons, was one of several speakers who fondly recalled, "He was a man who constantly found new ways to celebrate life."
"He was an ecclectic renaissance man," said agent Jeff Berg, who reminded the gathering of Ritchie's writing career, which included the book, Please Stand By, a pre-history of television.
The Wisconsin-born son of a Berkeley psychology professor, Ritchie studied history and literature at Harvard, where he directed plays including Arhur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad. He was an assistant director on the celebrated Omnibus television series and later directed installments of Profiles in Courage, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Dr. Kildaire, The Big Valley and Felony Squad.
Actor Holly Hunter salutes Ritchie
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"If there was anybody opposed to people being pretentious and sanctimonious and so on, it was Michael," remembered director John Badham, who first met the young director as a casting trainee at Universal Pictures Television in the early 1960s. "He liked freshness, people who didn't look like actors--Richard Romanus, Holly Hunter, Richard Dreyfuss. He put Gene Hackman on the map. Sissy Spacek he picked out of nowhere. That totally real quality--that's what he wanted."
Also speaking at the tribute were Guild members Walter Coblenz, Jerry Belson and Tim Matheson, who was for six years a next-door neighbor of the Ritchies. Actor Marshall Bell spoke along with agent Robert Bookman and Ritchie friends Tim Healy and Tony Themopoulos, and Alan Bergman sang a farewell song.
Landis read letters written for the occasion from film editor Richard Harris, who cut 14 Ritchie films, and French-based director Constantin Costa-Gavras. A lunch was served to the attendees in the atrium after the service.
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