David Weisman

David Weisman (March 11, 1942 – October 9, 2019) was an American film producer, author, and graphic artist, most noted for his films Ciao! Manhattan and Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was the brother of film director Sam Weisman.

David Weisman
David Weisman in 2009
Born	(1942-03-11)March 11, 1942 Binghamton, New York, U.S.
Died	October 9, 2019(2019-10-09) (aged 77)
Occupation	Film producer, film director, author, graphic artist
Years active	1967–2019
Relatives	Sam Weisman (brother)

Film career

After one viewing of La Dolce Vita (1960), Weisman dropped out of Syracuse University's School of Fine Arts to design film-posters in Rome — where, by learning fluent Italian, he managed to meet Federico Fellini, create the poster for Otto e mezzo (8 1/2) and work for Pier Paolo Pasolini.[1] In the mid-1960s, Weisman worked as Otto Preminger's assistant[2] and designed the graphics and title sequence for his 1967 Paramount Production, Hurry Sundown.

In 1967, Weisman was part of a splinter group from Andy Warhol's Factory who collaborated to make the experimental film, Ciao! Manhattan,[3] which Weisman eventually wound up co-directing with John Palmer and starring Edie Sedgwick.[4] The film was not released until 1972 (almost five years after production began) but received little attention until 1982 when Edie: An American Biography, by Jean Stein and George Plimpton, was released and quickly became a bestseller.[5]

Weisman's gift for languages (with fluency in French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Dutch) made him an "incurable nomad"; by the early 1980s, while in Brazil, he met and befriended fellow expat Manuel Puig.[6] Although Puig had repeatedly resisted other filmmakers' attempts to acquire screen rights to his fourth novel, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Weisman assembled an impressive team of actors and filmmakers, (including Burt Lancaster and Hector Babenco) convincing Puig to sell Weisman the rights.[6] Weisman developed the film over several years, engaging Leonard Schrader to write the screenplay and William Hurt (replacing Burt Lancaster in the role of "Molina") to star opposite Raul Julia as "Valentine".[6] For his role as the film's sole producer, Weisman was honored with an Best Picture nomination at the 58th Academy Awards on March 24, 1986, at which event William Hurt won the Oscar for Best Actor.[7]

On May 13, 2010 the film was honored upon its 25th anniversary as Cannes Classics opening selection at the 63rd annual Cannes International Film Festival.[8] On July 10, 2010 The New York Times wrote about Weisman's efforts to preserve the extensive Kiss of the Spider Woman archive as an historical artifact.[9][10]

Weisman's other films included Naked Tango, directed and written by Leonard Schrader and starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Mathilda May, Esai Morales, and Fernando Rey, filmed in Argentina with 1925 period "look" overseen by Weisman's co-producer, the Oscar-winning designer, Milena Canonero. Spike of Bensonhurst, directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Sasha Mitchell and Ernest Borgnine, and Shogun Assassin, a compilation of Japanese Samurai films (dubbed in English), released by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Weisman was credited by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill: Volume 2 for clips used from Shogun Assassin.

In 2006, Weisman co-authored a book with Melissa Painter for Chronicle Books about Edie Sedgwick called Edie: Girl on Fire. He was at work on a documentary with the same title.[11]

Since 2008, Weisman was working with Paul Schrader and Indian writer Mushtaq Shiekh, author of two Shah Rukh Khan biographies and screenwriter of Khan's Om Shanti Om, to produce a bilingual action thriller, Xtrme City.[12][13][14] Schrader describes the film as, "cross-cultural entertainment that merges the cinematic traditions of Bollywood and Hollywood."[15][16] Martin Scorsese will co-produce the picture with Shah Rukh Khan and Weisman.[17]

In 2012, Weisman hired Paul Schrader to write a screenplay entitled Little K about legendary ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska, notorious femme fatale of the Romanov era and mistress to last Tsar Nicholas II, the film to be financed by the V.Vinokur Fund for the Support of Russian Arts and Culture under auspices of the Kremlin.[18][19][20]

In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter described Weisman's litigation claim in U.S. Federal Court concerning Edie Sedgwick's name and likeness rights under the headline, “Judge Wraps Up Lawsuit Over Images of Andy Warhol Superstar Edie Sedgwick: The producer-director of ‘Ciao!Manhattan' gains a limited victory over Sedgwick’s husband”.[21]

In 2019, The Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Santa Barbara ruled that the "publicity rights" to Edie Sedgwick belong to David Weisman, and not to her widower Michael Post. The judge ruled that Edie was not a "deceased personality" at the time of her death, because her publicity rights did not have commercial value at the time of or as a result of her death on November 16,1971, and she had signed all of her publicity rights to David Weisman in her contract for Ciao! Manhattan.[22]

Selected filmography

• Hurry Sundown (1967, title designer)
• Ciao! Manhattan (1972, producer/co-director)
• Shogun Assassin (1980, producer)
• The Killing of America (1982, producer)
• Growing Pains (1984, executive producer)
• Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985, producer)
• Naked Tango (1991, producer)
• Kiss of the Spider Woman: Making the Musical (2008, director)
• Manuel Puig: The Submissive Woman's Role (2008, director)
• Tangled Web: Making Kiss of the Spider Woman (2008, director)
• Edie: Girl on Fire (2010, director)
• Xtrme City (2011, producer)
• Little K (2013, American producer)

References

1. "David Weisman Biography". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved December 11, 2017.
2. Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties. New York: Pantheon. p. 322. ISBN 0-679-42372-9
3. Nettles, John G. (March 18, 2003). "Her Fog, Her Amphetamines, and Her Pearls", Popmatters.
4. Ciao! Manhattan Archived October 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine at Plexifilm
5. Epstein, Daniel Robert. (January 31, 2007). "Edie: Girl on Fire author David Weisman", SuicideGirls.
6. Pauls, Alan. (September 28, 2003). "Bésame Mucho", Página/12. English Translation
7. "Academy Awards Database – AMPAS". Awardsdatabase.oscars.org. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
8. Brooks, Brian. (May 13, 2010). A Trailblazer, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” Set to Hit Cannes 25 Years Later, indieWire.
9. Cieply, Michael. (July 9, 2010). Movie’s Owners Want to Know if a Film Is Fit for Framing, The New York Times.
10. Duralde, Alonso. (February 25, 2011). Oscar History Watch: The Year Indies Bellied Up to the Oscar Bar, Movieline.
11. Edie: Girl On Fire at Chronicle Books
12. Thompson, Anne. (February 14, 2010). Shahrukh Khan Hits America, Berlin, Meets Leo DiCaprio Archived February 24, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, indieWire.
13. Banerjee, Debesh. (October 18, 2009). Mumbai Noir, Indian Express.
14. Ramnath, Nandini . (April 9, 2010). A Strange Marriage – What Happens when American and Indian Sensibilities Meet?, Livemint.
15. October 9, 2009. Paul Schrader's 'Xtrme City' Announces Financing Deal, Thaindian.
16. Tuteja, Joginder. (October 20, 2009). Taxi Driver, OSO Writers Pair up for Indo-American Bilingual, Bollywood Hungama.
17. KBR, Upala. (March 2, 2011). Martin Scorsese makes it happen: Hollywood director to co-produce Xtrme City with Shah Rukh Khan, MiD DAY.
18. Szalai, Georg. (May 17, 2012). Cannes 2012: Paul Schrader to Pen Script for Russian Ballerina Biopic, The Hollywood Reporter.
19. Thompson, Anne. (May 20, 2012). "EXCLUSIVE: Paul Schrader Talks Biopic of Legendary Tiny Dancer Kschessinska, indiewire.
20. Vanairsdale, S.T. (May 17, 2012). Paul Schrader Going to Work for the Kremlin (Really), movieline.
21. Gardner, Eriq. (September 29, 2014). Judge Wraps Up Lawsuit Over Images of Andy Warhol Superstar Edie Sedgwick, The Hollywood Reporter.
22. Comenas, Gary. (2019). [https://warholstars.org/edie_sedgwick_lawsuit_andy_warhol.html Who owns "Edie Sedgwick?" Court grants rights to "Edie Sedgwick's "name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness" to David Weisman], Warholstars.org.

External links

• David Weisman on IMDb