Celebrity Biographies
Gloria Katz
During his golden age, George Lucas had exceptional collaborators, without whom he would not have been able to change cinema forever. Among them we can count the screenwriter Gloria Katz, nominated for an Oscar, who died at the age of 76 at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, as a result of ovarian cancer that she had suffered for years, on Sunday, November 25, 2018. , according to her husband, Willard Huyck. “She died the day we were celebrating the 49th anniversary of our wedding,” she lamented.
Born in the same town, on October 25, 1942, Gloria Katz graduated in English Philology from the University of Berkley, and although she began to study a postgraduate degree in History at UCLA, once there she changed, to obtain a Master’s in cinema . She soon fell in love with Huyck, who was studying the same discipline, but at the rival campus, the University of Southern California (USC). There she had become very friendly with a promising young man, George Lucas , with whom she became a faithful collaborator.
As soon as they got married, Huyck and Katz made their debut with the low-budget horror film Messiah of Evil , from 1973, written and directed jointly by both, which, however, did not have much impact. Shortly after, Lucas, who was preparing his second feature film, American Graffiti , called on the services of Willard Huyck , but he told him that he did not work without his wife. “I wanted him, but he had to keep the whole pack,” Katz joked in an interview. The film garnered five Academy Award nominations, including one for its screenplay, but David S. Ward snatched it away from Katz, Huyck and Lucas for his masterful work on The Sting .
After collaborating with Stanley Donen , for whom they wrote the tragicomedy The Adventurers of the Lucky Lady , the couple again gave Lucas a hand when he was writing Star Wars . My husband told him to finish it, polish it, and then we would take a look at it to advise him, ”explained Katz. Apparently it is mainly due to her that Princess Leia was not a lady in distress in the traditional style, but a woman of arms, which at the time of her was quite an innovation.
Katz also co-wrote with Huyck the films directed by him An unforgettable course in Paris, The best defense… The attack! and the adaptation of the adventures of a Marvel character, Howard… a new hero , which despite being produced and endorsed by George Lucas , was a box office and critical fiasco. In fact, it ended Huyck’s filmmaking career. Both are also responsible (based on a story by Lucas) for the script for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , directed by Steven Spielberg , in 1984.
Subsequently, Gloria Katz was on the board of directors of the Writers Guild, and served as an adviser, at the Film Academy Museum, which opens next year. The Huyck-Katzs compiled a priceless collection of old Japanese photographs, which was recently acquired by an art gallery, after they recounted how they came together in the 2017 book “Views of Japan.” They had a daughter, Rebecca.