Norman Jewison: From Hollywood to the Caledon Hills

BY DAVID K. DORWARD | PHOTOS BY SDB IMAGES

NORMAN JEWISON is a world famous movie and TV director who lives right here in Caledon! He was the 1999 winner of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement.

The Thalberg Award is only one of many honours Norman has earned. These include Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Trent University, University of Western Ontario and University of Toronto, and he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1992. In addition, he has received numerous tributes at Canadian and international film festivals and retro- spectives, and has been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as Canada’s Walk of Fame. A park in downtown Toronto was named after him in 2001. On January 30, 2010 Norman also received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of America at the 62nd Annual DGA Awards at the Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
Norman’s career as a film director began in 1963 and continues to this day, as he is currently working on a new feature film.



In June 1978 Norman and Dixie Jewison, with children Kevin, Michael and Jennifer, moved back to their roots, in the beautiful Caledon Hills of Southern Ontario. Norman wanted a location close to the Toronto Airport for international travel, and in those days you could reach it in 30 minutes! Putney Heath Farms is famous for its pure maple syrup and Polled Hereford cattle. At its peak, the cattle operation ran 80 to 90 head. The Polled Herefords were recently sold at an auction in April 2010, but the maple syrup production continues. As a consumer of maple syrup, I can confirm it is of the purest and best quality, and they didn’t pay me to say that! Norman considers Putney Heath Farms his principal residence and loves it as the place where he is most at peace.

Many people are not aware that Norman also has a green thumb and is a very good gardener, as his dad was before him, particularly as it relates to pruning and transplanting.

His garden has been a veritable labour of love and his pride and joy. The farm was on poor, gravelly soil when first purchased and the objective, successfully accomplished, has been to create a natural look. Working actively on it, Norman along with farm manager, Jim Pipher, started a three year tree programme with the conservation authority to establish large trees and shrubbery as wildlife habitat. To get the gardens going, next were the flower beds. Norman is extremely creative and, for over 30 years, they have both been adding to and maintaining the property.





The farm is also dotted with art, which forms part of the landscape. Most visible from the road, as one comes up the sweeping driveway to the main house, is a full size black “iron lace” bull, somewhat paying homage to the cattle bred on the farm. The sculpture, which looks even more dramatic in winter set against the snow and ice covered lake, is the work of Saskatchewan sculptor Joe Fafard, famous for his bovine renditions. This bull occasionally travels off the property to Joe’s art shows! A large bronze “circus” horse came from England and a totem pole is the work of the Hunts, west coast First Nations artists, and was bought by Dixie (who has sadly passed away) as a birthday gift for Norman when he was working out west on Iceman with Timothy Hutton.





The following list of films that Norman has directed includes many famous stars. One of my all time favourite actors, the legendary Steve McQueen, was directed by Norman in The Cincinnati Kid and the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair.

• 40 Pounds of Trouble (1963)
• The Thrill of It All (1963)
• Send Me No Flowers (1964)
• The Art of Love (1965)
• The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
• The Russians Are Coming, the Russians
• Are Coming (1966)
• In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
• Gaily, Gaily (1969)
• Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
• Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
• Rollerball (1975)
• F.I.S.T. (1978)
• …And Justice for All (1979)
• Best Friends (1982)
• A Soldier’s Story (1984)
• Agnes of God (1985)
• Moonstruck (1987)
• In Country (1989)
• Other People’s Money (1991)
• Only You (1994)
• Bogus (1996)
• The Hurricane (1999)
• Dinner with Friends (2001) (TV)
• Walter and Henry (2001) (TV)
• The Statement (2003)

Norman Jewison

An Exclusive Interview with one of the film industry’s most acclaimed directors

David Dorward (DD): One of our favourite Norman Jewison films is The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. It seems to have quite an enduring legacy.

Norman Jewison (NJ): I’m amazed at how well it does. I very rarely see my films after they’re released, simply because, if I’m going to see a film, I prefer to see it on the big screen – especially one I’ve made myself – then see it on television. But a couple of years ago I was invited by the American Cinematheque to their tribute to Eva Marie Saint. They were showing a print of The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming at a theatre in Santa Monica. So I agreed to say a few words about shooting it with Eva and then join her for a Q&A. The theatre was packed and the film played as though the Cold War was still on. It was unbelievable, the reaction to that film. When you think about a film that was made back in the 60s still being relevant to America today…you could feel the paranoia kicking in and yet the laughs were all still there. A lot of people in that audience had not seen it before, and I must say the picture really played well.

DD: You worked with Steve McQueen twice—on The Cincinnati Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair. What are your memories of him?

NJ: I used to call him (Steve McQueen) Spanky because he was like Spanky Mcfarland. He could be Peck’s Bad Boy. I took over Cincinnati Kid after they had fired Sam Peckinpah who was shooting the film in black-and-white. I don’t know why, because I don’t know how you can shoot a card game in black-and-white since diamonds and hearts are red. I said that if I was going to take over the picture, I’d have to start again at the beginning. I thought the script was pretty turgid. So, I went and had a meeting with Steve. You know, I think Steve McQueen was always looking for a father. He had a very difficult childhood and had been at Boy’s Town. He had been in reform school. I think he felt deserted as a child. I said to him, “Look, I think you’re looking for a father and I’m not old enough to be your father, but how about if I’m your older brother – the one who went to school?” {Laughs} I said, “I promise I’ll always look out for you, Steve.” So there was this kind of trust between us. We became pretty close. I could take lines away from him and he’d behave himself. If there was a full moon, forget about it—he was out there in the desert on his motorbike. The moon seemed to have a great influence over his behaviour. Years later I did a picture called Moonstruck and I did a lot of research that shows the moon does influence our behaviour in more ways than one. I got along pretty well with Steve, and then we did Thomas Crown a few years later. He came to me with the idea of playing Thomas Crown. I was going after a much more sophisticated actor and Steve convinced me that he could play a Phi Beta Kappa Dartmouth graduate. He was fascinated by the role and he wanted to work with me again, since we got along so well. I talked him into accepting an unknown actress in the lead opposite him. Faye Dunaway hadn’t done anything up until that point. Bonnie and Clyde hadn’t been released. I only knew her from a play I had seen her in in New York. Anyway, that picture worked out fairly well, even though Steve could be a little unpredictable.

DD: It’s rather sad that at the end of his life he became almost unrecognizable.

NJ: You couldn’t recognize him. He had a full growth of beard that was totally untrimmed and his hair wasn’t cut. So you had this enormous, massive amount of hair and it was like Old Man Moses was looking at you with these eyes that were just blazing with intensity. He was frightened. He had been diagnosed with cancer. I remember one time he called to me in the parking lot of the Thalberg Building (in Los Angeles) and I wouldn’t have recognized him. We spent about a half hour together just sitting in his truck and talking. He went to Mexico and he tried to beat the cancer. It was sad because he was only 52 or 53 I think. (Steve McQueen was only 50 when he died. DD)

DD: Let’s discuss your musicals – Jesus Christ Superstar and Fiddler on the Roof. Did you find it more difficult coordinating a big screen musical?

NJ: Musicals are difficult because you have to pre-record before you shoot since everything is done to lip-sync. It’s especially difficult if you’re going to be roaming around Yugoslavia, as I had to do with Fiddler. I had to stage the numbers in rehearsal before I shot the picture and make certain decisions about what I wanted in the film because the play didn’t give me much help. A stage play is so much different than a film. For Fiddler, being in the Yugoslavian countryside, which was supposed to be Russia, it’s going to be a lot different than it is on the stage. I found it to be pretty tough. I had composer John Williams, and it was his first musical and he won the Academy Award for it. I also had a brilliant cinematographer, Oswald Morris, who also won the Academy Award for the film. I also had a great music editor named Dick Carruth whom I got from 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles. I brought him to Europe and he was one of the few Americans on the crew. Without him I couldn’t have done it. He had a click track that he could open up and I could add staging and choreography in the musical numbers while I was shooting, and it would keep the beat of the music even though there was no music there.

When I look at Jesus Christ Superstar, that is an hour-and-a-half rock video that was made long before rock videos. When you analyze it, first of all, it’s an opera. There are only two lines of dialogue in the whole film. I think it’s the most exciting work I’ve done on film because there was nothing there but a double album and us wandering around the desert with this wonderful cast of young people. Nobody knew who they were. They were American, British, Canadian, and Israeli. It was a very interesting period in my life. We did the picture so reasonably. I think the budget was about $3.5 million. The only money we spent was for equipment and crew and room and board. Nobody was making any money out of it, including myself. I had agreed to shoot it for very little because Universal Studios didn’t know how I was going to make a film out of it. Even after they read the script, they didn’t understand it. I worked with a mostly Israeli crew. I had a British camera crew and, of course, I had Dick Carruth. I also had Andre Previn and the London Symphony and the St. Paul’s Boys Choir. I had this incredible musical group at the end, and I think that the recording of the film was one of the great recordings of a rock opera. Those were exciting times, with two musicals back-to-back. Both were quite different in concept but not technique. It’s a shame we don’t make more musicals. I think it’s because, when music videos came along they took away from musical films. So the only musical films we have left now are Bell Telephone commercials and rock videos.

DD: As someone who teaches labour relations, I’ve always felt that F.I.S.T., the film you did with Sylvester Stallone, has always been sadly neglected. There were rumours that you had a strained relationship with Stallone.

NJ: Well, he wasn’t easy because, at that time in his life, I think he thought he was Rocky. I think he thought he was a folk hero, and he was to the American public. It was difficult for me, especially at the end of the film, because I don’t think he wanted to get killed off. I don’t think he understood that the film was really about Jimmy Hoffa and the betrayal of the labour movement in America. I was making a film about the breakdown of the union movement and the infiltration of one particular union by organized crime. I think he thought Rocky was a union leader now. It’s an interesting picture from that standpoint and a picture that I think packed a wallop. But I don’t think the audience at that time was interested in the betrayal of the American labour movement. {Laughs}

DD: Can you tell us your feelings about In the Heat of the Night?

NJ: I think it has to be one of my personal favourites. It captured the imagination of America and the Academy. I think the timing was perfect for that statement. It was my first film about race relations in America, which is something I’ve always been interested in. I think Heat still stands up, partly because Stirling Silliphant’s screenplay was so beautifully structured. It was a murder mystery, and the relationship between the two protagonists keeps it moving. It’s a who-dunnit, and only after you watch the movie are you aware that maybe it’s about something else.

DD: In the 1960s two of your high profile comedies were Send Me No Flowers and The Thrill of It All. What was it like working with Rock Hudson, Doris Day and James Garner?

NJ: Those were films I made where I laughed every day and played around a little bit and everyone was happy. They were very commercial American comedies. Send Me No Flowers was based on a play and Thrill of It All was based on an original screenplay by Carl Reiner who was a good friend of mine. Those were the days when I was young and I was learning a lot about making movies on the job. Universal gave me that opportunity. I was also having a lot of fun, as I like comedy. I enjoyed working with Doris Day. She was America’s sweetheart, the gal next door. Rock Hudson became a personal friend and I kept in touch with him for many, many years. James Garner, also. I put him in his first big movie. Those were fun days at Universal but I was always a little concerned about control. In those days, when I finished a picture, they already had me working on another one because I was under contract to them. One of the highlights of those years was being invited by Hitchcock for tea. I’d set up a very difficult shot so that everybody would be able to work without me for a while, so I’d go off to have tea with Hitch. He was the God of directors on the Universal lot. All of those people – Tony Curtis, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Jim Garner – they were all under contract at Universal also. So we had to do as we were told. I didn’t think I had a lot of freedom as a director. I never had total control of my films until I did The Cincinati Kid.

DD: What was your reaction when you heard about the remake of Rollerball?

NJ: I tried to talk them out of doing it. It came as a surprise. I told them that they shouldn’t make it. I said, “What you don’t understand is that Rollerball was a very political film. What you’re doing is making it like a video game. This isn’t going to work.” They spent about $60 million. I think I spent only about $5 million, maybe $6 million on my original. I don’t think they ever understood in America what Rollerball was all about. Europeans understood it. It’s a cult film in Europe. It was also probably one of the most popular films of the 70s in the UK, Germany, Holland and France. But I don’t think the Americans really understood it. They just wanted to play the game, I think. They’re doing remakes of my films and I’m not even dead yet!