Barry Spikings
Barry Spikings (born 23 November 1939) is a British film producer who worked in Hollywood. Spikings is best known as a producer of the film, The Deer Hunter (1978), which won five Academy Awards.
Biography[]
Spikings was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. After leaving Boston Grammar School he joined the local newspaper, the Lincolnshire Standard, as a trainee reporter. Later he joined the Farmers' Weekly, where he won a for a fifteen-minute film that he produced and directed himself.
Spikings then moved to the entertainment world. Initially, he promoted pop music festivals and later films.
British Lion and EMI[]
In 1972, he became the co-owner of British Lion Films; Spikings later joined EMI when it took over British Lion.[1] For the film, The Deer Hunter (1978), Spikings won an Academy Award for Best Picture. The film also garnered awards for several of its actors.[2]
Nelson Holdings[]
In 1985, Spikings formed a Canadian company, Nelson Holdings International, with British financier Richard Northcott, to purchase entertainment firms. Nelson later acquired the home video assets of Embassy Pictures from Coca-Cola and film production companies Galactic Films and the Spikings Corporation, and formed Nelson Entertainment.[3][4] Nelson had the North American home video rights and all international rights to the output from the newly-formed Castle Rock Entertainment.[5]
Spikings served as president of Nelson Entertainment through the early 1990s. Afterwards, he formed a production partnership with Eric Pleskow.[6]
Filmography[]
- 1975: Conduct Unbecoming (producer with Michael Deeley and Andrew Donally)
- 1976: The Man Who Fell to Earth (producer with Michael Deeley)
- 1978: Convoy (executive producer)
- 1978: The Deer Hunter (producer with Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, and John Peverall)
- Academy Awards 1978: Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), Director (Cimino), Film Editing, and Sound.
- 1990: Texasville (producer with Peter Bogdanovich)
- 1991: Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (executive producer)
- 1991: Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (producer)[7]
- 1991: The Taking of Beverly Hills (executive producer)
- 1994: The Favor (executive producer)
- 1994: There Goes My Baby — also known as The Last Days of Paradise (executive producer)
- 1995: Beyond Rangoon (producer with John Boorman and Eric Pleskow)
- 2013: Lone Survivor (producer with Peter Berg, Sarah Aubrey, Randall Emmett, Norton Herrick, Akiva Goldsman, Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Vitaly Grigoriants)
References[]
- ^ "A film script for the City". The Independent. 20 October 1996. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
- ^ Biskind, Peter. "The Vietnam Oscars". The Hive. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
- ^ Seideman, Tony (16 August 1986). "$85 mil buys Embassy." Billboard (p. 102).
- ^ [1]
- ^ A film script for the City Griffiths, Ian. The Independent 20 Oct 1996: 7.
- ^ [2]
- ^ "IMDb - Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas". Retrieved 28 December 2018.
External links[]
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- 1939 births
- Living people
- British film producers
- English film producers
- Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
- People from Boston, Lincolnshire
- People educated at Boston Grammar School