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Michael Sucsy | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 14, 1973 United States |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Known for | Grey Gardens The Vow |
| Spouse | Demitri Sgourakis (m. 2015) |
Michael Sucsy (born February 14, 1973) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for directing the HBO film Grey Gardens and The Vow.
Sucsy was raised in Connecticut and New York City. He is a graduate of Deerfield Academy, Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he earned a degree in International Relations, Law & Organization, and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, where he received a Masters in Fine Arts.
Sucsy segued from studying international relations to film production via the advertising industry, where he worked for the award-winning agency Cliff Freeman & Partners on the first-ever Staples t.v. ads. Sucsy then pursued work as a production assistant, an art department coordinator, a production secretary, and an assistant director on feature films, commercials, and music videos in Washington DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. He later went on to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in film from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Sucsy then began directing commercials and was soon dubbed by Shoot! Magazine "as one of the industry's crop of new directors to watch." He was subsequently nominated for the Young Director of the Year Award given in conjunction with the 2002 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
In 2003, Sucsy was inspired to write and direct a narrative feature film about the famous true story of Jackie O's eccentric relatives "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale and "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale called Grey Gardens after viewing the well-known documentary of the same name. The day after he first watched the documentary, Sucsy embarked on what was to become a six-year process to get Grey Gardens made. He used primary sources including Little Edie's personal correspondence, private journals, and poetry as well as interviews with family members and friends as the basis of his original script which traced the Beales' tragic descent from riches to rags over some forty years. With Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange attached to star as the reclusive mother-daughter duo, the project made its way to HBO who, in 2006, announced that Grey Gardens was moving into production with Sucsy as its director. Principal photography on Grey Gardens began in October 2007, and it debuted on HBO in April 2009 to great acclaim from critics and audiences, both new and old to the Grey Gardens phenomenon.
The film received multiple awards: 6 Primetime Emmy Awards including Best Made for Television Movie, the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Made for Television, and both the Broadcast Film Critics and the Television Critics Association Awards for Best Television Movie. Sucsy was additionally nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Mini-Series as well as the Writers Guild of America Award for Original Long Form Teleplay.
Sucsy's follow-up to Grey Gardens was The Vow , a romantic drama set in Chicago, starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum. The Vow was released by Sony Screen Gems and Columbia Pictures on February 10, 2012. It was a critical and commercial success, becoming the eighth highest-grossing romantic drama film since 1980. [1] In an interview with The Advocate's Jeremy Kinser, Sucsy said for his follow-up to Grey Gardens "I wanted to make something for a mainstream audience." He was also pleased with the opportunity to work with Lange a second time. "There are multiple layers to everything she does," he told The Advocate. "I'm not kidding when I say I'd look over and the grips and prop guys who are obviously watching — but not on the same level that I need to watch — their eyes are bugging out and their mouths are agape. We rewrote scenes and deepened scenes for her because you don't want to waste that kind of talent." [2]
Sucsy followed up The Vow with the film adaptation of the novel Every Day . The movie was released on February 23, 2018. [3]
Every Day is a 2018 American romantic fantasy drama film directed by Michael Sucsy and written by Jesse Andrews, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by David Levithan. The film stars Angourie Rice as 16-year-old Rhiannon, who falls in love with a traveling soul who wakes each morning in a different body; Justice Smith, Debby Ryan and Maria Bello also star.
Film critic Peter Bradshaw created a new Special Braddie Award for "Every Day" calling it "the quirky film overlooked by the complacent MSM gatekeeper-establishment which might be a future cult classic." Bradshaw, Peter (10 December 2018). "And the 2018 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw's films of the year". The Guardian . Retrieved 20 December 2018.
On February 26, 2021 Deadline Hollywood announced that New Republic Pictures will co-finance and produce an original holiday musical, A Lot Like Christmas, co-written by Sucsy and composer Elliott Wheeler (Elvis, The Get Down). Sucsy will also direct and produce. [4]
On December 11, 2018 Deadline Hollywood announced that Sucsy will write and direct a film adaptation of Playing to the Gods based on the novel by Peter Rader. [5]
Sucsy became engaged to interior designer Demitri Sgourakis on February 14, 2012, Sucsy's 39th birthday. [6] They were married on August 15, 2015, aboard the Midnight Rambler, a sailboat, off the coast of Montauk, N.Y. [7]
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Grey Gardens | Director, Writer, Producer |
| 2012 | The Vow | Director |
| 2018 | Every Day | Director |
| 2020 | 13 Reasons Why | Director, 2 episodes |
Edith Falco is an American actress. Known for her roles on stage and screen she has received numerous accolades including four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nomination for a Tony Award.
Philip Davis Guggenheim is an American screenwriter, director, and producer.
Grey Gardens is a 1975 American documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive, upper-class women, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a derelict mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York. The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival but was not entered into the main competition.
Edith Bouvier Beale, nicknamed Little Edie, was an American socialite, fashion model, and cabaret performer. She was a first cousin of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Lee Radziwill. She is best known for her participation in the 1975 documentary film Grey Gardens, by Albert and David Maysles,.
Caroline Lee Bouvier, later Canfield, Radziwiłł, and Ross, was an American socialite, public relations executive, and interior designer. She was the younger sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy.
Douglas Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Known for his extensive work in the American theatre in both plays and musicals he has received numerous accolades including the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.
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Grey Gardens is a musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, produced in 2006 and based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were Jacqueline Kennedy's aunt and cousin, respectively. Set at Grey Gardens, the Bouviers' mansion in East Hampton, New York, the musical tracks the progression of the two women's lives from their original status as rich and socially polished aristocrats to their eventual largely isolated existence in a home overrun by cats and cited for repeated health code violations. However, its more central purpose is to untangle the complicated dynamics of their dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship.
Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale was an American socialite and singer known for her reclusive and eccentric lifestyle. Known as Big Edie, she was a sister of John Vernou Bouvier III and an aunt of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and socialite Princess Lee Radziwill. Her life and relationship with her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale was highlighted in the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens.
Mark Mylod is an English director and executive producer of film and television. He began his career directing comedy shows such as Shooting Stars, The Fast Show, and The Royle Family, for which he received two BAFTA TV Awards.
Samuel Levinson is an American filmmaker and actor. He is the son of Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson. In 2010, he received his first writing credit as a co-writer for the action comedy film Operation: Endgame. The following year, he made his directorial film debut with Another Happy Day (2011), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival. He then received a writing credit on his father's HBO television film The Wizard of Lies (2017). He continued writing and directing for the feature films Assassination Nation (2018) and Malcolm & Marie (2021).
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Grey Gardens is a 2009 American biographical drama television film about the lives of Edith Bouvier "Little Edie" Beale, played by Drew Barrymore, and her mother Edith Ewing "Big Edie" Bouvier, played by Jessica Lange. Co-stars include Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy, Little Edie's cousin, and Ken Howard as Phelan Beale, Little Edie's father. The film, directed by Michael Sucsy and co-written by Sucsy and Patricia Rozema, flashes back and forth between various events and dates ranging from Little Edie as a young débutante in 1936 moving with her mother to their Grey Gardens estate through the filming and premiere of the actual 1975 documentary Grey Gardens.
Phelan Beale was an American attorney and sportsman in New York City who was married to Edith Ewing Bouvier, an aunt of former First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Beale is probably best remembered as the absent father chronicled in the Grey Gardens saga portrayed in a 1975 movie documentary, 2006 Broadway musical, and 2009 HBO film, all of which were named for his home in East Hampton, New York.
Lucy Barzun Donnelly is an American executive producer, including Grey Gardens.
Lois Erdmann Wright was an American artist, author, and television personality. She was best known for her appearance in the 1975 independent documentary film Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles. She was the author of the memoir My Life at Grey Gardens: 13 Months and Beyond. She hosted The Lois Wright Show for LTV Public Access in East Hampton for over 30 years; broadcasting her final show on December 19, 2018. As an artist, she exhibited at Guild Hall in East Hampton and at the National Arts Club in New York. Her art focused mainly on Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale of Grey Gardens.
Angourie Isabel Teresa Rice is an Australian actress. She began her career as a child actress, coming to attention for her roles in These Final Hours (2013) and The Nice Guys (2016). She played Betty Brant in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). For her starring role in Ladies in Black (2018), she won the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. In 2024, she starred as Cady Heron in the musical film Mean Girls.
Jerry “The Marble Faun” Torre is an American sculptor. He is best known for his appearance in the 1975 independent documentary films Grey Gardens and The Beales of Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles. As a sculptor, his work has been shown in several galleries in New York City and written about in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Forbes, among other publications. He is affectionately known among cult-film followers as "The Marble Faun"; a nickname that Edith Bouvier Beale gave him upon their first meeting. Torre worked as an assistant to Wayland Flowers, and through Aristotle Onassis obtained a job tending gardens for the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia. He was portrayed in the Tony Award winning Broadway musical Grey Gardens in 2006. His life has been documented in the 2011 film The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens.
Every Day is a 2018 American romantic fantasy drama film directed by Michael Sucsy and written by Jesse Andrews, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by David Levithan. The film stars Angourie Rice as 16-year-old Rhiannon, who falls in love with a traveling soul who wakes each morning in a different body; Justice Smith, Debby Ryan and Maria Bello also star. The film was released on February 23, 2018.
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