Irwin Winkler

Irwin Winkler (born May 25, 1931) is an American film producer and director. He is the producer or director of 50 major motion pictures, dating back to 1967's Double Trouble, starring Elvis Presley. The fourth film he produced, They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969), starring Jane Fonda, was nominated for eleven Academy Awards. In 1976, he won an Oscar for Best Picture for Rocky. As a producer, he has been nominated for Best Picture for three other films: Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, and Goodfellas.

During the 1990s he began directing his own films, which he also produced or co-produced. These include The Net, At First Sight, Life as a House and De-Lovely.

He was born in New York, New York, to father Sol Winkler and mother Anna Winkler. He received a BA from New York University in 1955, after serving in the U.S. Army.

In partnership with Robert I. Chartoff from the late 1960s, Irwin Winkler produced an impressive array of modern American gems, beginning with their first effort (along with Judd Bernard), Lee Boorman's taut thriller "Point Blank" (1967), largely ignored in its day but now regarded as a top film of the time. Adding Sydney Pollack to their production team for a one-shot-deal, they garnered critical acclaim for "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969). Their next film, "The Strawberry Statement" (1970), won the Jury Prize at Cannes but Chartoff and Winkler roared to the top with "Rocky" (1976), which earned the Academy Award as Best Picture. Subsequently, the producing duo picked up Best Picture Oscar nominations for "Raging Bull" (1980) and "The Right Stuff" (1983), their last project together before Winkler launched his solo career with the disappointing "Revolution" (1985).

Winkler produced such noteworthy features as Bertrand Tavernier's "'Round Midnight" (1986) and back-to-back Costa-Gavras films, "Betrayed" (1988) and "Music Box" (1989), before receiving another Best Picture Oscar nomination for Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas" (1990). He also returned to the franchise to oversee "Rocky IV" (1985) and "Rocky V" (1990), continuing the association forged with Stallone on the first three Chartoff-Winkler productions. Approaching the age of 60, Winkler moved into the director's chair, debuting with "Guilty by Suspicion" (1991), a drama (which he also scripted) about the Hollywood blacklist that starred Robert De Niro. His second feature, the unsuccessful 1992 remake of "Night and the City", also starred De Niro.

Winkler had better luck at the box office as writer-director of the Sandra Bullock vehicle "The Net" (1995), which spawned a series of the same name debuting on the USA Network in 1998, but got mired in syrupy sentimentality in "At First Sight" (1999) a gooey romance-drama starring Val Kilmer as a blind man whose bid to regain his sight complicates his relationship with his girlfriend (Mira Sorvino). The director delivered one of his most potent films yet with "Life as a House" (2001), a complex, emotional and frequently amusing tale featuring a depressed dying man (Kevin Kline) who funnels his energies into rebuilding the dilapidated beach shack he purchased years earlier and, in the process, building bridges between himself and his disaffected son (Hayden Christensen). Receiving a healthy dose of critical praise, Winkler re-teamed with Kline for the follow-up "De-Lovely" (2004), casting the actor as the lead in his elegant and sophisticated biopic of American composer Cole Porter centered on his unique relationship with his wife and muse (Ashley Judd).

As his directorial career flourished, Winkler continued to produce his share of films as well, including The Shipping News (2001) and Enough (2002).

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