Richard Rush (director)
Richard Rush | |
---|---|
Los Angeles, California, U.S. | |
Occupation(s) | Film director, producer, screenwriter |
Years active | 1960–2001 |
Richard Rush (April 15, 1929 – April 8, 2021) was an American
Biography
Early life
Rush spent his childhood fascinated by
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
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
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
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
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
Later career
Rush originally wanted to direct the horror comedy
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
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)
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
- ^ Extra (U.S. TV program). December 6, 2000. Archived from the originalon June 28, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2009.
- ^ "FILMLAND EVENTS: Raitt and Wilson Set for Civic Light Opera". Los Angeles Times. Mar 25, 1960. p. A9.
- ^ "Prepares 'Kitten'". Los Angeles Times. Mar 24, 1960. p. C15.
- ^ "All-time Film Rental Champs". Variety. January 7, 1976. p. 20.
- ^ FIRST ANNUAL 'GROSSES GLOSS', Byron, Stuart. Film Comment; New York Vol. 12, Iss. 2, (Mar/Apr 1976): 30-31.
- Archive.org.
- ^ "The Stunt Man". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
- ^ "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
- ^ Henderson, Jason. "New on DVD: "The Stunt Man," Austin Chronicle (Jan. 18, 2002).
- ^ "The 53rd Academy Awards (1981) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 24, 2022.
- ^ "Love at First Bite". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
- ^ "In Search of . . . Richard Rush". Los Angeles Times. 10 December 1989.
- ^ "THE MOVIES : The fine art of MAKING THE DEAL". Los Angeles Times. 27 May 1990.
- ^ "Interview: Director Richard Rush » We Are Cult". 30 September 2017. Archived from the original on 2019-03-28.
- ^ Turan, Kenneth (August 19, 1994). "Movie Review: A 'Night' of Mystery, Murder and Passion". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Dagan, Carmel (12 April 2021). "Richard Rush, 'The Stunt Man' Director, Dies at 91". Variety. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Richard Rush". American Film Institute. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Richard Rush". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
- ^ "Richard Rush". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on March 7, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
External links
- Richard Rush at IMDb
- Richard Rush at the TCM Movie Database