Richard Donner

Richard Donner was born in New York in 1930 under the name of Richard Donald Schwartzberg, in the Bronx neighborhood. Of Jewish roots, his father ran a small furniture manufacturing business. He grew up there with his sister Joan, and the acting profession attracted him, but he was not destined to be an interpreter, but a director and producer, although perhaps because he had that little thorn stuck in an unfulfilled desire, he appeared frequently in his films, cameos a la Hitchcock although much more discreet than those of the plump director.

Like so many directors, the demands of products for the small screen gave him the opportunity to work piecemeal on episodes of popular television series. In the late ’50s and through the ’60s and even into the ’70s, he worked on Perry Mason , Wanted: Dead or Alive , The Man with the Rifle , The Fugitive , The Adventures of Jim West , The Streets of San Francisco , Cannon , Kojak and The Six Million Dollar Man . Wonderful learning school, which also allowed him to rub shoulders with actors such as Steve McQueen , Raymond Burr, Chuck Connors , Karl Malden , Michael Douglas , David Janssen , Telly Savalas , Lee Majors or Farrah Fawcett .

Although in cinema he had directed the comedies Salt and Pepper (1968) and Twinky (1970), the great opportunity on the big screen was the devil’s thing, or rather, the antichrist. The terrifying The Prophecy (1976), where a supposedly angelic boy named Damien had the number of the beast, 666, and in which veterans Gregory Peck and Lee Remi ck worked as husband and wife, made history, and made movies fashionable. about diabolical possessions and exorcisms. There would be sequels, but Donner, intelligently, distanced himself from them, even appearing in the third installment as a producer.

Demonstrating his capacity for commercial cinema, the success of George Lucas with Star Wars was proof that the public was thirsty for adventure films, a genre that had been relegated, perhaps due to the political and social environment of the At the time, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and JFK, a certain ingenuity had been lost in the United States, which was only valid on the television from which Donner came. So Warner once again trusted him to adapt to the big screen the adventures of the Kryptonian superhero from the famous comic by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster , who hid his true identity with that of Clark Kent. Superman (1978) was an instant hit, launching Christopher Reeve in the mainstream, and the chance to direct great actors like Marlon Brando , Glenn Ford and Gene Hackman , to name a few. The great cast model for a superhero movie would inspire Christopher Nolan years later for his approach to The Dark Knight trilogy . The Salkind brothers offered Donner a million dollars to direct the film, an incredible figure for someone like him. The filmmaker demonstrated his personality by asking for a rewrite of the initial script, which did not convince him, it seemed too much of a comic. And although he liked Sylvester Stallone, and he met with him at the request of the producers, facing the role of Superman, he, who wanted someone unknown, got away with choosing the perfect actor, Reeves, whom he had seen play two roles in a play off -Broadway, and therefore it was perfect to adopt a double identity in the film.

It was logical that Donner would direct Superman II (1980), and in this case the director wanted to do it. But filming was not easy, the director did not get along with the producers, as he asked Pierre Spengler to leave the project due to disagreements, something the Saklind brothers did not agree to. To the point that he was replaced in the last bars by Richard Lester , the only accredited director at the time. The consolation would not come until many years later, in 2006, when Donner was able to release a version with the editing that he would have wanted. Perhaps the experience was what made it possible for him to make the most unusual film of his career almost immediately, the nostalgic, small and independent Max’s Bar (1980), which had a script by Barry Levinson . In any case, a rare stage occurred, in which one could fear the worst, for example with the comedy His favorite toy From him (1982), a remake of a French film.

However, he returned to Warner’s orbit, and a triumphant stage began. Curiously a romantic adventure film, Lady Hawk (1985) was the first film with which his wife would be, producer Lauren Shuler, later known as Lauren Shuler-Donner, would work with her again producing three other titles, although both they preferred to work on their own projects, and she would continue to produce when he stepped down as director. The story of the two lovers, Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer , separated by a spell that turns him into a wolf at night and her into a hawk by day, with Rutger Hauer as the villain, captivated the public. The same thing that happened with The Goonies, from the same year, a story about a gang of kids produced by Steven Spielberg , and which would serve as a benchmark many years later for productions such as Stranger Things .

In 1987 his happy collaboration with Mel Gibson began , shooting the first of the four installments that he also directed in the Lethal Weapon saga , which perfectly exploited the formula of a buddy movie with a couple of policemen with contrasting characters. Gibson’s Martin Riggs is an unstable and crazy widower, while Danny Glover , black cop, is the other side of the coin, a calm and collected married man. He will again work with the Australian-born actor in the comedy-western based on a television series Maverick (1994) and in the witty and paranoid Conspiracy .(1997). Gibson only has words of praise for the filmmaker: “Uncle Dick. He’s a great guy, tremendous. Extremely professional. He is an old veteran who has an understanding of cinema that is the culmination of years of experience.” Donner returned the compliments, assuring that “it is the most exciting thing that has happened in my life as an actor and a friend. He is a very special human being.”

Donner would occasionally return to the small screen shooting several episodes of Tales from the Crypt . And while it was unsuccessful, it was ahead of its time by dealing with the issue of domestic violence from the point of view of two children – era child prodigies Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazzello – in the valuable Illusion Force (1992) . . He wasn’t too funny, however, his update of Dickens’s Christmas Carol in The Ghosts Attack the Boss (1988).

Antonio Banderas would work under him, accompanied by Sylvester Stallone , in Assassins (1995), irregular despite having a script by the then Wachowski brothers . Conspiracy and Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), were the last films of interest that Donner shot. The director lost his magnificent pulse when adapting Michael Crichton in Timeline (2003), and his last film behind the camera was definitely quite conventional, an action thriller with a Bruce Willis who was already combing gray hair (with the little hair he sported). , in 16 streets (2006).