Norman Jewison

Norman Jewison (born July 21, 1926, Toronto, Ontario, Canada—died January 20, 2024) was a Canadian television and film director and producer known for his adroit depictions of American social ills. His notable movies included In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), A Soldier’s Story (1984), and Moonstruck (1987).

Jewison was raised in Toronto, the youngest of two children born to the owners of a dry-goods store. Following a brief stint in the Canadian Royal Navy, he attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 1949. At the suggestion of the head of programming for the nascent television division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), he traveled to London in 1950 and found work as an actor and writer for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

In late 1951 Jewison returned to Canada, where he joined the television training program of the CBC. He directed and produced musical and variety programs for the CBC until 1958, when he assumed the reins of the American television show Your Hit Parade in New York City. Following that program’s end in 1959, Jewison directed television specials in New York before turning to film with the comic romp 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), starring Tony Curtis. He signed with Universal Pictures and directed three more films for the studio, including a pair of Doris Day comedies, The Thrill of It All (1963) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). After finagling out of the Universal deal, Jewison assumed control of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s (MGM’s) The Cincinnati Kid (1965), a poker film starring Steve McQueen.

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Jewison then turned to more politically charged material with The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), which poked fun at the Red Scare. In the Heat of the Night (1967) starred Sidney Poitier as a detective from Philadelphia who becomes involved in solving a murder in a small Mississippi town. The film, which cast a gimlet eye on racial prejudices in the South, won five Academy Awards, including one for best picture, and Jewison received a best-director nomination. Jewison’s next outing was the caper flick The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), starring McQueen and Faye Dunaway. He followed with the musicals Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), both adapted from Broadway productions and the first of which earned Jewison another Oscar nomination for best director.

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Jewison then helmed the futuristic dystopia Rollerball (1975); the union saga F.I.S.T. (1978), starring Sylvester Stallone; and the legal drama ...And Justice for All (1979), with Al Pacino. He again examined racial prejudice in A Soldier’s Story (1984), about the murder of an African American army sergeant. Later efforts included Moonstruck (1987), a romantic comedy starring Cher that won him a third Oscar nod, and Bogus (1996), a film about a boy and his imaginary friend, played by Gérard Depardieu. The Hurricane (1999) featured Denzel Washington as Rubin (“Hurricane”) Carter, a boxer wrongly accused of murder. In 2003 Jewison directed The Statement (2003), chronicling the real-life efforts of vigilantes and law-enforcement officials to capture a Vichy war criminal, played by Michael Caine.

Jewison became an officer of the Order of Canada in 1982 and was elevated to companion in 1992. In 1988 he founded the Canadian Film Centre (CFC), a film training school. He received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1999 and was named chancellor of Victoria University in 2004; he held that post until 2010. He also penned an autobiography, This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me (2004).