Daniel Melnick, RIP

Even more than Washington, Hollywood is famously the land of, “if you want a friend, get a dog.”  Pals, business associates, even lovers come and go in this, the country’s last freewheeling bastion of untrammeled capitalism, in which “what have you done for me lately?” is not a reproach but a perfectly reasonable question.

Daniel Melnick

So it is with great sadness that I learned, up here in the New England woods, of the death on Tuesday of my friend, rabbi and mentor, Daniel Melnick, the former head of MGM and Columbia, best known for Straw Dogs, Altered States, All That Jazz, L.A. Story, and That’s Entertainment.  Dan was not only a great producer, with a story sense second to none, a sense of history, both cinematic and American, a steel-trap mind, and an amazing memory (he could read version after version of a treatment written by an idiot – in this case, me – and always find the new material.  And then tell you what was wrong with it).   No, he was much more. (more…)