Michael Phillips (producer)

American film producer

For other people with the same name, see Michael Phillips (disambiguation).

Michael Phillips

Phillips in 1978

Born|  (1943-06-29) June 29, 1943 (age 81)

Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Alma mater| Dartmouth College (B.A.)
New York University (J.D.)
Spouses|

Julia Phillips

(m. 1966⁠-⁠1974)​

Juliana Maio

(m. 1987)​

Children| 3
Awards| Academy Award for Best Picture (1973)
Palme d'Or (1976)

Michael Phillips (born June 29, 1943) is an American film producer.

## Early life and education

[edit]

Phillips was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. His mother, Shirley, was a schoolteacher and housewife; his father, Larry, was a garment manufacturer.[1] They later became dealers in ancient Asian art.[2] Phillips received a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law.[3] After being admitted to the New York Bar in 1969, he worked as a securities analyst on Wall Street. In 1971, he and his wife moved to Malibu, California and produced their first film, Steelyard Blues, starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.[3]

## Film career

[edit]

In 1972, Phillips along with his then-wife, Julia Phillips, and producer Tony Bill financed the development of the screenplay, The Sting for $3,500 in total.[3] In 1973, the film received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Michael and Julia were the first husband-and-wife team to win the Best Picture award. The couple then produced Taxi Driver (which would go on to win the Palme D'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival) and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.[4]

In 1984, his production company, Mercury Entertainment, went public with the intention to capitalize on his prior successes.[5] Mercury planned to produce three to five films a year in the $10-million range[5] with operating and development costs to be paid by ABC Motion Pictures while production financing was provided by the major studios.[5] The 1984 film The Flamingo Kid and the 1991 film Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead were not as successful as hoped and in 1992, Philips offered to take the company private repurchasing outstanding stock at seven cents on the dollar.[5] In 1986, he teamed up with Michael Douglas to launch a new company to produce independently financed features, and has option to buy Douglas' company Big Stick Inc.[6] In 2006, Mercury Entertainment was merged with Debmar Studios to form Debmar-Mercury (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Lions Gate Entertainment).

The Sting was inducted into the Producers Guild of America's Hall of Fame, granting each of its producers a Golden Laurel Award.[7] In June 2007, Taxi Driver was ranked as the 52nd-best American feature film of all time by the American Film Institute.[8] In December 2007, Close Encounters was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[9]

## Select filmography

[edit]

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.

### Film

[edit]

Year  | Film  | Credit

|
|

1973 | Steelyard Blues |
The Sting |
1976 | Taxi Driver |
The Big Bus | Executive producer
1977 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind |
1981 | Heartbeeps |
1982 | Cannery Row |
1984 | The Flamingo Kid |
1991 | Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead | Executive producer
Eyes of an Angel | Executive producer
1992 | Mom and Dad Save the World |
1997 | Mimic | Executive producer
2001 | Impostor | Executive producer
2007 | The Last Mimzy |

As an actor
Year  | Film  | Role  | Notes

|
|
|

1976 | Taxi Driver | Political Rally Attendee |

Uncredited

Thanks
Year  | Film  | Role

|
|

2017 | David's Dinosaur | Very special thanks

### Television

[edit]

Year  | Title  | Credit  | Notes

|
|
|

1989 | The Flamingo Kid |  | Television pilot
1994 | Jane's House | Executive producer | Television film
The Companion |  | Television film
1995 | Trailer Park | Co-executive producer |

Thanks
Year  | Title  | Role

|
|

2012 | Inside the Legend | Thanks

## Personal life

[edit]

Phillips is a Trustee Professor at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, where he taught for several years.[10]

He has been married to writer Juliana Maio since 1987[11] and has three daughters, Kate, Amanda, and Natasha.[10]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ edited by Steven Priggé Movie Moguls Speak: Interviews with Top Film Producers ISBN 9780786419296 | McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers | 10/26/2004
2. ^ "Larry Phillips: Global Style Pioneer". Phillips Collection. Retrieved May 17, 2018.
3. ^ a b c New York Magazine: "The Sting of Success" January 27, 1975
4. ^ The Guardian: "How we made ... Michael Phillips and David S Ward on The Sting" by Ben Child June 4, 2012
5. ^ a b c d Citron, Alan (January 17, 1992). "Hard Times for 'Sting' Producer: Phillips Wants to Take His Ailing Production Company Private". Los Angeles Times.
6. ^ "Mercury, Douglas Team". Variety. June 11, 1986. p. 6.
7. ^ Producers Guild of America Awards 1997
8. ^ "American Film Institute" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2007. Retrieved October 20, 2007.
9. ^ "Librarian of Congress Announces National Film Registry Selections for 2007" (Press release). Library of Congress. December 27, 2007.
10. ^ a b "Chapman University Trustee Professors". www.chapman.edu. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
11. ^ "Michael Phillips Bio". IMDb. Retrieved May 18, 2018.

## External links

[edit]

* Michael Phillips at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

Academy Award for Best Picture

1951–1975|

* Arthur Freed (1951)
* Cecil B. DeMille (1952)
* Buddy Adler (1953)
* Sam Spiegel (1954)
* Harold Hecht (1955)
* Michael Todd (1956)
* Sam Spiegel (1957)
* Arthur Freed (1958)
* Sam Zimbalist (1959)
* Billy Wilder (1960)
* Robert Wise (1961)
* Sam Spiegel (1962)
* Tony Richardson (1963)
* Jack L. Warner (1964)
* Robert Wise (1965)
* Fred Zinnemann (1966)
* Walter Mirisch (1967)
* John Woolf (1968)
* Jerome Hellman (1969)
* Frank McCarthy (1970)
* Philip D'Antoni (1971)
* Albert S. Ruddy (1972)
* Tony Bill, Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips (1973)
* Francis Ford Coppola, Gray Frederickson and Fred Roos (1974)
* Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz (1975)

1976–2000|

* Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler (1976)
* Charles H. Joffe (1977)
* Michael Cimino, Michael Deeley, John Peverall and Barry Spikings (1978)
* Stanley R. Jaffe (1979)
* Ronald L. Schwary (1980)
* David Puttnam (1981)
* Richard Attenborough (1982)
* James L. Brooks (1983)
* Saul Zaentz (1984)
* Sydney Pollack (1985)
* Arnold Kopelson (1986)
* Jeremy Thomas (1987)
* Mark Johnson (1988)
* Lili Fini Zanuck and Richard D. Zanuck (1989)
* Kevin Costner and Jim Wilson (1990)
* Ron Bozman, Edward Saxon and Kenneth Utt (1991)
* Clint Eastwood (1992)
* Branko Lustig, Gerald R. Molen and Steven Spielberg (1993)
* Wendy Finerman, Steve Starkey and Steve Tisch (1994)
* Bruce Davey, Mel Gibson and Alan Ladd Jr. (1995)
* Saul Zaentz (1996)
* James Cameron and Jon Landau (1997)
* Donna Gigliotti, Marc Norman, David Parfitt, Harvey Weinstein and Edward Zwick (1998)
* Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks (1999)
* David Franzoni, Branko Lustig and Douglas Wick (2000)

2001–present|

* Brian Grazer and Ron Howard (2001)
* Martin Richards (2002)
* Peter Jackson, Barrie M. Osborne and Fran Walsh (2003)
* Clint Eastwood, Tom Rosenberg and Albert S. Ruddy (2004)
* Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman (2005)
* Graham King (2006)
* Ethan Coen, Joel Coen and Scott Rudin (2007)
* Christian Colson (2008)
* Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro (2009)
* Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin (2010)
* Thomas Langmann (2011)
* Ben Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov (2012)
* Dede Gardner, Anthony Katagas, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Brad Pitt (2013)
* Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole (2014)
* Blye Pagon Faust, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Michael Sugar (2015)
* Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Adele Romanski (2016)
* J. Miles Dale and Guillermo del Toro (2017)
* Jim Burke, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga and Charles B. Wessler (2018)
* Bong Joon-ho and Kwak Sin-ae (2019)
* Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears and Chloé Zhao (2020)
* Fabrice Gianfermi, Philippe Rousselet, Patrick Wachsberger (2021)
* Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang (2022)
* Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan (2023)

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Spain
* Netherlands
* Sweden
* Poland
* Israel

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