By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

MARTIN E. SEGAL (1916 – 2012)

Posted Monday, August 6th, 2012 - Comments Off on MARTIN E. SEGAL (1916 – 2012)
Be Sociable, Share!

MEDIA ALERT/UPDATE

New York, NY – (August 6, 2012) One of New York City’s leading cultural figures, a former chairman of Lincoln Center as well as the founding president and chief executive of the Film Society of Lincoln Center for several years, Martin E. Segal died today in New York.

Born July 4, 1916 in Vitebsk, Russia, Martin E. Segal was the founder of The Segal Company in 1939, retiring as its chairman in 1991. He was the founding president of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and chief executive from 1968 to 1978 and president emeritus since that time, as well as the chairman of Lincoln Center from 1981 to 1986, at which time he became chairman emeritus.

Segal served on many other Boards and committees of major civic, cultural, health, and educational organizations, including being the first chairman of New York’s Commission for Cultural Affairs, from 1975-1977 and founding the International Festival of the Arts, which ran from 1985-2002. He was also vice chairman of the Graduate Center Foundation of The City University of New York from 2003-2008. Segal had received numerous awards and honors as well as seven honorary degrees.

Responding to Segal’s passing, FSLC issued a statement saying, “The Board and the staff of the Film Society of Lincoln Center are deeply saddened by the death of its founding President, Martin E. Segal, who devotedly guided our organization through its formative years and beyond. Marty’s generosity and enthusiastic involvement created the foundation for the Film Society’s growth and stability for more than four decades. Most notably, his brilliant initiative in arranging for the Film Society’s tribute for Charlie Chaplin on the occasion of his return to the United States resulted in a historic event. His creative mind, quick wit and charm will be missed by all of us.”

Film Society of Lincoln Center

Under the leadership of Rose Kuo, Executive Director, and Richard Peña, Program Director, the Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, currently planning its 50th edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational programs and specialty film releases at its Walter Reade Theater and the new state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, 42BELOW, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stella Artois, the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com.

# # #

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on MARTIN E. SEGAL (1916 – 2012)

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon