Movie Producer Elliott Kastner R.I.P.

Elliott Kastner, an executive producer on more than 70 movies, passed on June 30 at the age of 80.

Elliott Kastner was born on January 7, 1930 in New York City. He attended the University of Miami and also served in the United States Army. At some point, whether before or after his time in the Army, Mr. Kastner worked in the mail room at the William Morris Agency. In 1959 he moved to Los Angeles and went to work for MCA, then the most powerful agency in the United States. It was after MCA merged with Decca Records, which then owned Universal Pictures, that Lew Wasserman, the head of MCA, appointed Elliott Kastner vice president of production for Universal. Mr. Kastner remained with the studio for two years before going out on his own as an independent producer.

The first film Elliott Kastner produced was Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965). For the rest of the Sixties he produced such films as Harper (1966), Kaleidoscope (1966), the classic war film Where Eagles Dare (1968), and The Walking Stick (1970). In the Seventies he produced such films as When Eight Bells Toll (1971),11 Harrowhouse (1974), an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, (1975), Swashbuckler (1976), The Big Sleep (1978), and Mr. Horn (1979). In the Eighties, Nineties, and Naughts he produced such films as Oxford Blues (1984), Heat (1986), Angel Heart (1987), Jack's Back (1988), Frank & Jesse (1995), and Sweet November (2001).