He impacted hundreds of films and made the initial leap in the career of strangers, including Dustin Hoffman, Christopher Reeve, LaVar Burton and Ned Beatty.
Lynn Stalmaster, the astute casting director who pushed unknown strangers Dustin Hoffman to The graduate, Christopher Reeve for Superman and John Travolta for Welcome back, Kotter, died. He was 93 years old.
Stalmaster, who at the Governors Awards in November 2016 became the first casting director in history to receive an Oscar, died Friday morning at his home in Los Angeles, said Laura Adler of the Casting Society of America The Hollywood Reporter.
After he accepted his honorary Oscar, Stalmaster said the key to his success was keeping an open mind. “‘Open’ is one of my favorite words,” he noted. “Because as I have said many times, you never know where or when you will find the answer [to casting a part]. And I found the answer in some very strange places. “
In Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown case (1968), the theft classic starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, Stalmaster he became the first casting director to receive a single credit card in the titles.
“There was my name in the main titles on a separate card: ‘Lynn cast Stalmaster ‘ … It was one of the most moving moments of my life ”, recalled the former actor in Cast by…, the 2012 documentary directed by Tom Donahue.
For years, Hollywood has refused to acknowledge the full role played by casting directors as Stalmaster and its legendary East Coast counterpart, Marion Dougherty. Said director Taylor Hackford in the documentary: “The reality is that you are not a director; you’re a cast, uh, person, you’re ‘climbing by’ …
Nicknamed “The Master Conjurer”, Stalmaster has over 400 cast credits listed on the IMDb, with many highlights to mention, including I want to live! (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), The great escape (1963), The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming (1966), In the heat of the night (1967), They shoot horses, don’t they? (1969), Harold and Maude (1971), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The onion field (1979), Tootsie (1982), Nine and a half weeks (1986), The bonfire of vanities (1990) and Battlefield Earth (2000).
During the course of his remarkable six-decade career, the kind Stalmaster found new faces and consistently launched against the type. “Never compromise,” he said at the Governors Awards, “no matter the size of the role, even if it’s just a reaction.”
For John Boorman’s Release (1972), Stalmaster did a casting call at a Georgia elementary school and found Billy Redden to play the quirky young man in the film’s famous banjo scene. And he suggested that Ned Beatty (making his film debut) play one of the businessmen who takes that fateful canoe trip down the river.
Stalmaster was also instrumental in William’s career Shatner (Nuremberg Trials); uncovered Take along Burton, then a sophomore at USC, for the ABC miniseries Roots; cast country singer Mac Davis to play a professional quarterback in North Dallas Forty (1979); and insisted that eventual Oscar nominee Sam Shepard portrayed Chuck Yeager in 1983 The right thing (“It was the only time I thought the film could not be made without a specific actor,” he said once). He cast more than 100 roles for that film alone.
Stalmaster saw “an innate sense of truth” in Jeff Bridges and launched the twentysomething actor (and younger son of Lloyd Bridges) in his first film, Halls of Anger (1970). He went back to him again to The ice man comes (1973), and Bridges’ experience in that film convinced him to make his acting career.
“I I have to thanks, man, for guiding me this way, “said Bridges at the Governors Awards.
Stalmaster he made notes about each actor he saw and saved them, knowing that one day, a more suitable role might appear. “I want to look you in the eye. That’s the key, “he said THRin Scott Feinberg in 2014. He used to visit New York’s stage in search of new talent; that’s where he first met a skinny Reeve.
“I saw him in a play in New York with Katharine Hepburn,” he said Backstage magazine in 2013. “I brought it out [to Los Angeles] to make a small role in Gray Lady Down. So, of course, it crossed my mind when [director] Richard Donner said: ‘We couldn’t find Superman.’ “
Stalmaster Travolta auditioned for Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail (1973), but when Randy Quaid got the role of young Meadows Navy prisoner (on his way to an Oscar nomination), he got Travolta to audition for the ABC sitcom Welcome back, Kotterboosting your career.
“Lynn supported me so I could play anything,” said Travolta.
Stalmaster drew the attention of director Mike Nichols to the little-known theater actor Hoffman for The graduate (1967), and he got Richard Dreyfuss a line (on the way to leadership in 1974 Learning from Duddy Kravitz) in the film as well.
“With some actors you perceive an intangible quality. You cannot explain this. You just feel that there is something special, something magical here, ” Stalmaster said.
The son of a lawyer, Stalmaster was born on November 17, 1927, in Omaha, Nebraska. After he and his family moved to Los Angeles, he studied at Beverly Hills High School and at UCLA, where he earned a master’s degree in performing arts. He started out as an actor, appearing in films like The steel helmet (1951), written and directed by Samuel Fuller, and Flying Fisheries (1951), starring John Wayne.
As a backup plan, Stalmaster worked as an assistant to two producers and was invited to launch his shows after the casting director retired. He became independent a few years later and launched the police series The lone wolf and the legendary CBS Western Gunsmoke; he would be listed as the casting director in more than 300 episodes of the latter until 1964.
Stalmaster was also a casting director on TV shows like My living doll, The Untouchables, I have a gun – will travel, Ben Casey, My favorite martian, Hogan’s Heroes, Three’s Company, Family and Hart to Hart.
“Lynn gave me and my entire generation the opportunity to dare to dream that we could make a difference or matter,” said actor Bruce Dern at the Governors Awards. “He saw some kind of light in our eyes or something. He challenged us to go beyond the limit, he challenged us to take pieces that no one else would take.
“I remember that John Frankenheimer told me while we were doing [1977’s] Black Sunday, ‘If you have Lynn Stalmaster to launch your movie, you have a damn chance of having a good movie. ‘”