Richard Rush (director)

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Richard Rush
Richard Rush
Born(1929-04-15)April 15, 1929
New York City, U.S.
DiedApril 8, 2021(2021-04-08) (aged 91)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Film director, producer, screenwriter
Years active1960–2001

Richard Rush (April 15, 1929 – April 8, 2021) was an American film director, scriptwriter, and producer. He is known for directing The Stunt Man, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. His film Color of Night won a Golden Raspberry Award as the worst film of 1994, but Maxim magazine also singled the film out as having the best sex scene in film history.[1] Rush, whose directing career began in 1960, also directed Freebie and the Bean, a police buddy comedy/drama starring Alan Arkin and James Caan. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film Air America.

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Rush spent his childhood fascinated by Marcel Proust and Batman comics.[citation needed] He was one of the first students of UCLA's film program,[citation needed] and after graduation worked to create television programs for the United States military[clarify] showcasing the nation's involvement in the Korean War. While he agreed with the military's involvement in the region, Rush's participation in this conflict can be seen as a defining event for the director who later explained:

There's a recurring theme that I keep getting attracted to in film. . . . Being unable to accept truth, we have a tendency to accept systems, and to believe in a series of learned homilies and arbitrary rituals of good and evil, right and wrong. Magic, king, country, mother, God, all those burning truths we got from our early bathroom training from bumper stickers and from crocheted pillow cases. When it's right to kill. When it's not right to kill. Under what circumstances. Arbitrary rules invented for the occasion. And we really dedicate ourselves to them ferociously. And they tend to obscure any real human feeling or any real morality that might emerge to substitute for it.[citation needed]

After his military-related work, Rush opened a production company to produce commercials and industrial films.

Early Features[edit]

At the age of thirty, inspired by the neo-realism of French director François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, Rush sold his production business to finance his first feature Too Soon to Love (1960), which he produced on a shoestring budget of $50,000 and sold to Universal Pictures for distribution for $250,000. It featured an early film appearance by Jack Nicholson (who starred in two later Rush films, Hells Angels on Wheels and Psych-Out).

Rush wanted to follow it with an adaptation of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? [2] but did not end up making the film. He was also attached to Kitten with a Whip early on.[3]

Rush then directed Of Love and Desire (1963) with Merle Oberon.

Exploitation Films[edit]

Rush's third movie was a spy picture, A Man Called Dagger (1966) which was his first collaboration with cinematographer László Kovács.

Rush directed a car racing film for American International Pictures, Thunder Alley (1967) starring Fabian Forte and Annette Funicello.

He did The Fickle Finger of Fate (1967) for Sidney W. Pink starring Tab Hunter, then did a biker movie for Joe Solomon, Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), starring Nicholson.

Rush was signed by Dick Clark to make two more films for AIP: Psych-Out (1968), a film about the counter culture starring Nicholson and Susan Strasberg, and a biker movie The Savage Seven (1968).

Studio Films[edit]

Rush signed a deal with Columbia Pictures. His first studio effort was 1970's Getting Straight, starring Elliott Gould and Candice Bergen. The film did well commercially and was deemed by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman to be the "best American film of the decade."

Rush's next movie, in 1974, was Freebie and the Bean. For the most part, Freebie was critically panned; however, it was enormously popular with audiences, grossing $12.5 million at the box office[4][5] on a $3 million budget[6] in the two years following its release.

Rush was hired to direct One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) after its original director Miloš Forman was placed under increasing censorship and StB surveillance by the normalization-era Communist Party government of Czechoslovakia. However, he was replaced by Hal Ashby after he was unable to secure studio funding, and Ashby was later replaced by Forman after he fled to the United States.[7][8]

The Stunt Man[edit]

In 1981, Truffaut was asked "Who is your favorite American director?" He answered, "I don’t know his name, but I saw his film last night and it was called The Stunt Man."[9] The film, which took Rush nine years to put together,[citation needed] was a slapstick comedy, a thriller, a romance, an action-adventure, and a commentary on America's dismissal of veterans, as well as a deconstruction of Hollywood cinema. The film also features Rush's typical protagonist, an emotionally traumatized male who has escaped the traditional frameworks of society only to find his new world (biker gangs in Hells Angels on Wheels, hippies in Psych-Out) corrupted by the same influences. The Stunt Man won Rush Oscar nominations for best director and best script (co-nominated with Lawrence B. Marcus).[10]

Later career[edit]

Rush originally wanted to direct the horror comedy Love at First Bite (1979) as his first film after The Stunt Man, but was replaced by Stan Dragoti.[11] In 1985, Rush was hired by Carolco Pictures to direct Air America (1990) with Sean Connery and Kevin Costner starring. When the film was delayed to avoid competition with Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and when Connery and Costner's salaries became too expensive, Rush was paid full salary to walk away from the project by Daniel Melnick.[12] This allowed the studio to cast Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr. and turn the film into a success, grossing nearly double its budget.[13]

Rush did not direct another film for four years, until the 1994's box office failure Color of Night. However, Color of Night also won "Best Sex Scene in film history" award from Maxim magazine;[1] Rush was very proud of the award, and he kept the award in his bathroom.[14]

Afterward, Rush retreated from the world of commercial cinema. As Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times wrote, Rush's career seems to be "followed by the kind of miserable luck that never seems to afflict the untalented."[15]

His last project was a DVD documentary on the making of The Stunt Man entitled The Sinister Saga of Making The Stunt Man (2001).

He resided in Bel Air with his wife Claudia. He had an older brother, Dr. Stephen Rush who also resided in Los Angeles.

On April 8, 2021, Rush died a week shy of his 92nd birthday at his Los Angeles home after long-term health problems.[16]

Filmography (as director and writer)[edit]

Year Film Director Writer Producer
1960 Too Soon to Love[17][18] Yes Yes Yes
1963 Of Love and Desire[17][18] Yes Yes No
1967 Thunder Alley[17][18] Yes No No
Hells Angels on Wheels[17][18] Yes No No
The Fickle Finger of Fate Yes No No
1968 Psych-Out[17][18] Yes No No
The Savage Seven[17][18] Yes No No
A Man Called Dagger[17][18] Yes No No
1970 Getting Straight[17][18] Yes No Yes
1974 Freebie and the Bean[17][18] Yes No Yes
1980 The Stunt Man[17][18] Yes Yes Yes
1990 Air America[17][18] No Yes No
1994 Color of Night[17][18] Yes No No
2000 The Sinister Saga of Making "The Stunt Man"[18][19] Yes Yes Yes

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Top Sex Scenes of All-Time". Extra (U.S. TV program). December 6, 2000. Archived from the original on June 28, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2009.
  2. ^ "FILMLAND EVENTS: Raitt and Wilson Set for Civic Light Opera". Los Angeles Times. Mar 25, 1960. p. A9.
  3. ^ "Prepares 'Kitten'". Los Angeles Times. Mar 24, 1960. p. C15.
  4. ^ "All-time Film Rental Champs". Variety. January 7, 1976. p. 20.
  5. ^ FIRST ANNUAL 'GROSSES GLOSS', Byron, Stuart. Film Comment; New York Vol. 12, Iss. 2, (Mar/Apr 1976): 30-31.
  6. ^ "McElwaine Has 22 Readying; Finds Forgotten WB Coppola". Variety. November 12, 1975. p. 6. Retrieved June 27, 2022 – via Archive.org.
  7. ^ "The Stunt Man". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  8. ^ "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  9. ^ Henderson, Jason. "New on DVD: "The Stunt Man," Austin Chronicle (Jan. 18, 2002).
  10. ^ "The 53rd Academy Awards (1981) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 24, 2022.
  11. ^ "Love at First Bite". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  12. ^ "In Search of . . . Richard Rush". Los Angeles Times. 10 December 1989.
  13. ^ "THE MOVIES : The fine art of MAKING THE DEAL". Los Angeles Times. 27 May 1990.
  14. ^ "Interview: Director Richard Rush » We Are Cult". 30 September 2017. Archived from the original on 2019-03-28.
  15. ^ Turan, Kenneth (August 19, 1994). "Movie Review: A 'Night' of Mystery, Murder and Passion". Los Angeles Times.
  16. ^ Dagan, Carmel (12 April 2021). "Richard Rush, 'The Stunt Man' Director, Dies at 91". Variety. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Richard Rush". American Film Institute. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Richard Rush". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
  19. ^ "Richard Rush". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on March 7, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2021.

External links[edit]

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