Gary Kurtz

• 1. Introduction

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  Gary Kurtz walked onto the set of a low-budget Western in 1965 with no idea he would one day help shape two of the most profitable films ever made. He was an assistant director on Ride in the Whirlwind, a Monte Hellman picture starring Jack Nicholson, made for a company called Proteus Films. Within a decade, he would be producing Star Wars. Between those two points lies a career that passed through Vietnam, the back lots of American International Pictures, and the boardrooms of Universal Studios. What drove a Quaker conscientious objector who refused to wear a sidearm in combat to become one of Hollywood's most consequential behind-the-scenes figures? And what eventually pulled him away from the franchise he helped build? Those questions run through everything that follows.

• 2. Apprenticeship and War

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  Between 1965 and 1966, Kurtz wore so many job titles on different productions that it is easier to list what he did not do. He served as assistant director, second unit director, camera operator, production manager, sound technician, and editor across a string of low-budget films for studios like American International Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Crown International Pictures, and others. Jack Nicholson appeared in two of those early films. Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton, and Basil Rathbone were among the other actors he worked around. The films were cheap, fast, and often genre pictures: westerns, science fiction adventures, beach comedies.

  Then his career stopped. From 1966 to 1969, Kurtz served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He had been raised as a Quaker and enlisted as a conscientious objector, which meant he refused to carry a sidearm. The Marines sent him to Vietnam as a combat cameraman. That particular combination, a pacifist faith and frontline filmmaking, shaped the man who later insisted on keeping Star Wars grounded in emotional storytelling rather than spectacle alone.

  When he returned to civilian life, Kurtz moved up to studio-level productions almost immediately. In 1971, he was the associate producer on Two-Lane Blacktop, another Monte Hellman collaboration, this time for Universal Pictures, and on the neo-noir Chandler for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. Both of those credits arrived in the same year, suggesting the pace he intended to keep.

• 3. American Graffiti's Unlikely Triumph

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  George Lucas and Gary Kurtz took the American Graffiti script to American International Pictures first. The studio expressed interest but turned them down, deciding the film was not violent or sexual enough by its standards. Universal Pictures was more receptive, handing Lucas total artistic control and final cut rights on one condition: the film had to be made on a strict, low budget. Universal initially projected a $600,000 budget. Once Francis Ford Coppola signed on as co-producer with Kurtz, the studio added another $175,000, and Universal gained the right to advertise the film as coming from the man who made The Godfather.

  The film was released in the United States on the 1st of August, 1973. It cost $1.27 million to produce and market. It returned more than $55 million in worldwide box office gross. Universal reissued it in 1978 and earned an additional $63 million, pushing the combined two-release total to $118 million. By the 1990s, box office and home video together had brought in more than $200 million. In December 1997, Variety reported $55.13 million more in rental revenue alone. At the end of its theatrical run, American Graffiti carried one of the best cost-to-profit ratios in motion picture history.

  Kurtz and Coppola were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, losing to The Sting. They did win Best Motion Picture in the Musical or Comedy category at the 31st Golden Globe Awards. In 1995, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, citing its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance. That same year, Kurtz had already formed his own production company, Kinetographics, in San Rafael, California, a step that would prove meaningful as his ambitions grew.

• 4. A Galaxy Built in a Desert

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  Principal photography on Star Wars began on the 22nd of March, 1976, in the Tunisian desert, where the crew was filming scenes set on the planet Tatooine. Problems arrived almost immediately. A rare Tunisian rainstorm pushed Lucas behind schedule in the very first week. Props malfunctioned and electronics broke down. Lucas clashed with cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, whom Kurtz later described as "old-school" and "crotchety."

  The film was produced on a budget of $11 million and released on the 25th of May, 1977. It earned $460 million in the United States and $314 million overseas, surpassing Jaws as the nominally highest-grossing film in history. That record stood until E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial took it in 1982. Adjusted for inflation, Star Wars ranks as the second-highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada and third in the world.

  The film received ten Academy Award nominations and won six. Kurtz himself was nominated for Best Picture. Alec Guinness was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The Library of Congress selected the film for the National Film Registry in 1989. Among its other honors was the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture in 1978 and Best Science Fiction Film at the 5th Saturn Awards. The scale of what Kurtz and Lucas had built together was enormous, which made the fracture that came next all the more consequential.

• 5. The Breaking Point

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  The Empire Strikes Back took 175 shooting days against an original budget of 100. The overrun was so severe that Lucas had to borrow $10 million to finish the film. Kurtz helped direct alongside David Tomblin, Irvin Kershner, Harley Cokeliss, and John Barry; Barry died of meningitis during production. The wrap party, hosted by Kurtz and his wife, took place in late August 1979, but the actual completion of photography came a full month after that. Kurtz was replaced by Howard Kazanjian four weeks before filming wrapped, even as he remained involved through post-production and the film's theatrical releases in the United States and the United Kingdom.

  Released on the 21st of May, 1980, The Empire Strikes Back earned more than $538 million worldwide across its original run and several re-releases. It was the highest-grossing film of 1980 and is the twelfth-highest-grossing in the United States and Canada when adjusted for inflation. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2010.

  Kurtz later claimed the split with Lucasfilm came down to creative philosophy. After Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, he said, Lucas became convinced that audiences wanted thrills rather than story, and began reshaping Return of the Jedi accordingly. Kurtz said Lucas also shifted the franchise's priorities toward toy merchandising, which he quoted as generating three times the revenue of the films themselves. Opposing accounts say Kurtz was fired due to his management of a production that ran massively over budget and schedule. Whatever the cause, Kazanjian took over as producer on Return of the Jedi, and Kurtz moved on. In a 2010 interview with the L.A. Times, Kurtz revealed that the original planned ending for the third film was "bittersweet and poignant," and was said to have included the death of Han Solo.

• 6. Creatures, Fantasy, and Collapse

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  The Dark Crystal, released on the 17th of December, 1982, in 858 theaters across North America, was Kurtz's first major post-Lucasfilm production. Jim Henson and Frank Oz directed it. The screenplay came from David Odell, who had worked with Henson as a staff writer on The Muppet Show. Exterior scenes were shot in the Scottish Highlands, at Gordale Scar in North Yorkshire, in Twycross in Leicestershire, and interior scenes at Elstree Studios.

  At the scoring stage, Kurtz made a significant creative call. He instructed composer Trevor Jones to abandon his initial plan of using acoustical instruments, electronics, and unconventional building structures to reflect the film's strangeness. Kurtz wanted a sweeping orchestral score instead, arguing that the experimental approach would alienate audiences. The film opened against Tootsie and a still-dominant E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, yet it showed unusual staying power through the following weeks and into 1983. Its domestic box office run ended at $40,577,001, comfortably above its $15 million budget. On international release later in 1983, The Dark Crystal was the top-grossing film of the year in both France and Japan, and it out-grossed E.T. as the most successful foreign film in Japan until Titanic displaced it fourteen years later.

  Kurtz also became involved in the long, troubled development of Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, an animated feature that had originally been brought to George Lucas in 1978 by Japanese producer Yutaka Fujioka. Lucas found problems with the storyline, as did animator Chuck Jones. When the project was officially announced in 1982, Kurtz's company TMS/Kinetographics began recruiting staff. Kurtz hired Ray Bradbury and later Edward Summer to write screenplays. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata briefly joined the project but left after creative differences with Fujioka; Miyazaki later called his involvement the worst experience of his professional career. Kurtz himself stepped down in the fall of 1984. The film was eventually released in Japan on the 15th of July, 1989.

  Return to Oz, released in 1985, added a fantasy adventure to his filmography and a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards, though the film lost to Cocoon and was considered a box office flop. Then came Slipstream in 1989, which proved catastrophic. Its failure reportedly drove Kurtz into bankruptcy. The film had a short run in the United Kingdom and Australia, where its entire theatrical gross was $66,836. It was never released in theaters in North America.

• 7. The Man Behind the Camera

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  Gary Kurtz was born in Los Angeles. He moved to London for the production of Star Wars and chose to stay permanently, raising his family there. He was a Quaker and also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was married first to Meredith Alsup and then to Roberta Jiminez; both marriages ended in divorce. He had two daughters, Tiffany and Melissa, with Alsup, and a son, Dylan, with Jiminez. His final marriage was to Clare Gabriel and endured until his death.

  In the years after Slipstream, Kurtz worked on a range of projects that rarely matched the scale of his earlier career. He served as executive producer on a television series called Friends and Heroes across thirteen episodes in 2007, and on a television series called Resistance in 2008. He had uncredited involvement on The Thief and the Cobbler in 1993. His filmography also includes a number of incomplete projects: The Spirit with Will Eisner, Jerry Rees, and Brad Bird; a project called Teefr with Edward Summer; A New Atlantis with Edward Summer and Richard Edlund; and Panzer 88 with Peter Briggs.

  Kurtz died of cancer in North London on the 23rd of September, 2018. A film called 5-25-77, referencing the original release date of Star Wars, was released posthumously in 2022 with him listed as a producer.