Barry Spikings (born 23 November 1939) is a British film producer who worked in Hollywood. Spikings is best known as a producer of the film The Deer Hunter (1978), which won five Academy Awards.
Spikings was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. After leaving Boston Grammar School he joined the local newspaper, the Lincolnshire Standard , as a trainee reporter. Later he joined the Farmers' Weekly , where he won a Golden Ear award for a fifteen-minute film that he produced and directed himself.
Spikings then moved to the entertainment world. Initially, he promoted pop music festivals and later films.
In 1972, he became the co-owner of British Lion Films; Spikings later joined EMI when it took over British Lion. [1] [2] For the film, The Deer Hunter (1978), Spikings won an Academy Award for Best Picture. The film also garnered awards for several of its actors. [3]
In 1985, Spikings formed a Canadian company, Nelson Holdings International, with British financier Richard Northcott, to purchase entertainment firms. Nelson later acquired the home video assets of Embassy Pictures from Coca-Cola and film production companies Galactic Films and the Spikings Corporation, and formed Nelson Entertainment. [4] [5] Nelson had the North American home video rights and all international rights to the output from the newly-formed Castle Rock Entertainment. [6]
Spikings served as president of Nelson Entertainment through the early 1990s. Afterwards, he formed a production partnership with Eric Pleskow. [7]
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American epic war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Slavic-American steelworkers whose lives are upended after fighting in the Vietnam War. The soldiers are played by Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage, with John Cazale, Meryl Streep, and George Dzundza in supporting roles. The story takes place in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a working-class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, and in Vietnam.
The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and co-written by Bogdanovich and Larry McMurtry, adapted from the 1966 semi-autobiographical novel by McMurtry. The film's ensemble cast includes Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, and Cybill Shepherd. Set in a small town in northern Texas from November 1951 to October 1952, it is a story of two high school seniors and long-time friends, Sonny Crawford (Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Bridges).
Heaven's Gate is a 1980 American epic Western film written and directed by Michael Cimino, starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, and Joseph Cotten, and loosely based on the Johnson County War. It revolves around a dispute between land barons and European immigrants of modest means in Wyoming in the 1890s.
Orion Releasing, LLC is an American film production and distribution company owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon.
Michael Antonio Cimino was an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. Notorious for his obsessive attention to detail and determination for perfection, Cimino achieved widespread fame with The Deer Hunter (1978), which won five Academy Awards at the 51st Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Frank Wilton Marshall is an American film producer and director. He often collaborates with his wife, film producer Kathleen Kennedy, with whom he founded the production company Amblin Entertainment, along with Steven Spielberg. In 1991, he founded, with Kennedy, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, a film production company. Since May 2012, with Kennedy taking on the role of President of Lucasfilm, Marshall has been Kennedy/Marshall's sole principal.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a 1974 American crime comedy film written and directed by Michael Cimino and starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis. The film follows John "Thunderbolt" Doherty, a disguised preacher who is almost killed before being unintentionally rescued by a young car thief named "Lightfoot", who partners with him in a series of thefts. It is soon discovered that "Thunderbolt" is a fugitive bank robber who is being hunted by his former gang.
Michael Deeley is an Academy Award-winning British film producer known for motion pictures such as The Italian Job (1969), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Blade Runner (1982). He is also a founding member and Honorary President of British Screen Forum.
Canal+ Image International was a British-French film, television, animation studio and distributor. A former subsidiary of the EMI conglomerate, the corporate name was not used throughout the entire period of EMI's involvement in the film industry, from 1969 to 1986, but the company's brief connection with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Anglo-EMI, the division under Nat Cohen, and the later company as part of the Thorn EMI conglomerate are outlined here.
Robbery is a 1967 British crime film directed by Peter Yates and starring Stanley Baker, Joanna Pettet and James Booth. The story is a heavily fictionalised version of the 1963 Great Train Robbery. The film was produced by Stanley Baker and Michael Deeley, for Baker's company Oakhurst Productions.
Peter James Yates was an English film director and producer. He was known for making films in a wide variety of genres, including the Steve McQueen police thriller film Bullitt in 1968. He received nominations for four Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.
The 51st Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 1978 and took place on April 9, 1979, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, beginning at 7:00 p.m. PST / 10:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Jack Haley Jr. and directed by Marty Pasetta. Comedian and talk show host Johnny Carson hosted the show for the first time. Three days earlier, in a ceremony held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by hosts Gregory Peck and Christopher Reeve.
Nat Cohen was a British film producer and executive. For over four decades he was one of the most significant figures in the British film industry, particularly in his capacity as head of Anglo-Amalgamated and EMI Films; he helped finance the first Carry On movies and early work of filmmakers such as Ken Loach, John Schlesinger, Alan Parker and David Puttnam. In the early 1970s while head of EMI Films he was called the most powerful man in the British film industry. He's been called "an unsung giant of British film who never got his due from the establishment in part because of anti-Semitism... the ability to be a successful studio head is very rare and most only last a few years. Cohen did it successfully at various companies for over two decades."
The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn is a 1956 British short comedy second feature ('B') film directed by Joseph Sterling and starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Dick Emery. It was written by Harry Booth, Jon Penington and regular Goon show co-writer Larry Stephens, from a story by Stephens, with additional material by Sellers and Milligan.
Peter Zinner was an Austrian-American film editor. Following nearly fifteen years of uncredited work as an assistant sound editor, Zinner received credits on more than fifty films from 1959 to 2006. His most influential films are likely The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, both of which appear on a 2012 listing of the 75 best edited films of all time compiled by the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
Eric Pleskow was an Austrian-born American film producer and executive. From 1973 through 1978, Pleskow was president of United Artists. Following a protest from Transamerica Corporation, Pleskow co-founded and later ran Orion Pictures in 1978 through 1991. In his later career, he served as president of the Vienna International Film Festival from 1998 until his death.
Arabian Adventure is a 1979 British fantasy adventure film directed by Kevin Connor and starring Christopher Lee and Oliver Tobias.
Deric Washburn is an American screenwriter.
Harry J. Ufland was an American talent agent and film producer. He was best known for producing the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
John Peverall was a British film producer and director. He has served as a producer on films such as The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Deer Hunter and television programmes such as Arthur of the Britons and The Far Pavilions.