Celebrity Biographies
Barry Levinson
First a writer, then a director, Barry Levinson has a special talent for nostalgic and family stories. He knew how to shine in the 80s when “the man of the rain” gave him the Oscar, and has maintained close ties with two great actors, Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams. On the border between the craftsman, a good storyteller, and the pure and hard artist, he has sometimes known how to cross it to make great films.
Barry Levinson was born on April 6, 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Precisely his Russian-Jewish homeland and roots would inspire one of his most personal films, Avalon (1990) , which has a nostalgic point of view provided by a child, played by the then promising Elijah Wood.
The future screenwriter and director went through the School of Communication at the American University in Washington, but adventure got the better of him, and he went to Los Angeles ready to try his luck as an actor and screenwriter; for this he entered the world of varieties. Witty and imaginative, he found his way writing skits for the Martin Feldman and Carol Burnett television shows .
Mel Brooks knew how to appreciate Levinson’s talent, and would film two of his scripts collaborating with him, The Last Madness of Mel Brooks (1976) and Maximum Anxiety (1977). With his first wife, Valerie Curtin , with whom he was married between 1975 and 1982, he wrote the screenplay for Justice for All (Norman Jewison, 1979), work for which both were nominated for an Oscar. The conjugal writing work would give rise to the scripts for Very Intimate Friends ( Norman Jewison , 1982) and Unfaithfully Yours ( Howard Zieff , 1984), a remake of the film of the same name by Preston Sturges . The couple also signed the script forMax’s Bar ( Richard Donner , 1981), a film impregnated with a nostalgia that immediately transferred to Levinson’s first films as a director. This is the case of Diner (1982), where five friends who usually meet in a joint at the end of the 50s must think about growing up. Levinson signed the script solo and was nominated for an Oscar. After his divorce, he would marry Diana Rhodes, who already had two children, and with whom he had another two.
Nostalgia is present again in The Best (1984), set in the world of baseball and more commercial, where he films someone else’s script with heavyweights such as Robert Redford , Glen Close and Kim Basinger . There is also nostalgia in the youthful adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in The Secret of the Pyramid (1985), where the libretto, which is not based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels, is provided by Chris Columbus .
In 1987 he once again managed his own script in the comedy Two Swindlers and a Woman , and an alien one in Good Morning, Vietnam , most successful films, with an immeasurable Robin Williams as a crazy radio announcer who, without mincing words, encourages the American soldiers in Vietnam. In any case, the ground is fertile enough for Hollywood to surrender at his feet, rewarding him as a director in the multi-Oscar-winning Rain Man (1988), which also won best film in addition to giving the jackpot to Dustin Hoffman as Tom Cruise’s autistic brother in an endearing film that perfectly combines drama and comedy; the film would also take the Golden Bear in Berlin.
Recently “crowned” he can afford to work as a producer in a film as personal as Avalon (1990) –his script is nominated for an Oscar– or in the audacious and little understood Toys (1992), nostalgia for childhood and innocent toys. On the other hand, although he counts for the Oscars, Bugsy (1991), biopic of the famous gangster Bugsy Siegel with Warren Beatty and Annette Benning is too cold. From this moment he will produce his films as director, and also those of others such as The Little Princess ( Alfonso Cuarón , 1995) and Donnie Brasco ( Mike Newell , 1997), or television series such as Homicide (series) .
The Spanish Victoria Abril starred with Joe Pesci in Jimmy Hollywood (1994), a true fiasco. Levinson clings to safe values, and puts his professionalism at the service of the adaptation of two best-sellers by Michael Crichton , Harassment (1994) and Sphere (1998). On the other hand, he risks more with Sleepers (1996), where he himself carries out the adaptation of the harsh autobiographical memories of Lorenzo Carcaterra, about his gang in New York in the 60s and the abuses in a correctional facility; longing is thus still present in Levinson’s cinema. There is also courage in the political satire La cortina de humo (1997), where he once again coincides withDustin Hoffman for the third time, and that clothes don’t hurt when collaborating with a prestigious screenwriter such as the playwright and director David Mamet .
From this moment on, Levinson’s star declines, he continues to make good movies, but he is not in the front line. Liberty Heights (1999) follows his nostalgic streak, but without the glitz of yesteryear. Bandits (2001) is funny, but decidedly Envy (2004) and Man of the Year (2006) – with its second fetish actor, Robin William, the other is Dustin Hoffman – do not allow us to recognize the filmmaker that he was. It is more toned in Something Happens in Hollywood (2008), a new association with Robert De Niro after The Smoke Screen , and it is necessary to recognize its value in the story of the sinister Jack Kevorkian, the doctor Death who executes euthanasia in the tv-movieYou Don’t Know Jack (2010).
Now he is about to release The Bay , an ecological thriller, and plans to once again travel through gangster territory in a John Gotti biopic.