Paul Heller
Encyclopedia
Paul Heller is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 residing in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

. His best movies known include Enter the Dragon
Enter the Dragon
Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts co-production with Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. studios, directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. This is Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973...

, Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....

, My Left Foot
My Left Foot (film)
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown is a 1989 drama film directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Day-Lewis. It tells the true story of Christy Brown, an Irishman born with cerebral palsy, who could control only his left foot. Christy Brown grew up in a poor, working class family, and...

, The Annihilation of Fish, Skin Games
Skin Games
Skin Games were a British pop/rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Critically acclaimed as artists, they never gained commercial success, and broke up after just one album release, The Blood Rush, released in 1989. The soaring vocal style of lead singer Wendy Page has been compared with...

, Hot Potato
Hot Potato (film)
Hot Potato is a 1976 action film written and directed by Oscar Williams. The film was a Weintraub and Heller production starring Jim Kelly. Jim Kelly also arranged his own fight scenes. Hot Potato was filmed on location in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is a follow-up to Black Belt Jones. The film was...

, The Promise
The Promise (1979 film)
The Promise is a 1979 film, released by was a Universal Pictures, which starred Kathleen Quinlan, Stephen Collins, and Beatrice Straight. It was directed by Gilbert Cates and produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller...

, The Barony, Black Belt Jones
Black Belt Jones
Black Belt Jones is a 1974 American Blaxploitation action film. The main musical theme was performed by the funk guitarist Dennis Coffey. The film was featured as number 38 on the documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.-Plot:...

, and David and Lisa
David and Lisa
David and Lisa is a small independent film directed by Frank Perry, often cited as one of his best works. Based on the novel by Theodore Isaac Rubin, the screenplay, written by Frank Perry's wife Eleanor, tells the story of a bright young man suffering from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

.

Film Production

His debut as a film producer was David and Lisa
David and Lisa
David and Lisa is a small independent film directed by Frank Perry, often cited as one of his best works. Based on the novel by Theodore Isaac Rubin, the screenplay, written by Frank Perry's wife Eleanor, tells the story of a bright young man suffering from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

, which received two Oscar nominations and innumerable awards. He was the executive producer of 1990's Oscar winner, My Left Foot
My Left Foot (film)
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown is a 1989 drama film directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Day-Lewis. It tells the true story of Christy Brown, an Irishman born with cerebral palsy, who could control only his left foot. Christy Brown grew up in a poor, working class family, and...

, which earned five Academy Award nominations and Oscars for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

Heller's commitment to high quality films has been the hallmark of his career. His film, The Eavesdropper won acclaim as Best Film at Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...

 and honors at both the New York and London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...

s. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Film at the French Awards, as was his film Secret Ceremony
Secret Ceremony
Secret Ceremony is a 1968 film, produced in Britain and released by Universal Pictures. It stars Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Robert Mitchum, Pamela Brown, and Peggy Ashcroft. Joseph Losey directed, from a script by George Tabori.-Plot:...

, starring Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

 and Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...

.

Although Heller worked as a successful Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 executive, overseeing such films as Skin Game
Skin Game
Skin Game is a 1971 movie comedy western starring James Garner and Louis Gossett, Jr.- Plot :Quincy Drew and Jason O'Rourke travel from town to town in the south of the United States during the slavery era. Drew claims to be a down-on-his-luck slave owner who is selling O'Rourke as a slave...

, starring James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

, and Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....

, starring Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

, he prefers the life of the independent producer. In that role he is able to combine the goal of making quality films with his love of hands-on involvement in the process of film-making. A process that has so far created and developed over 30 feature films and numerous projects in allied fields.

In 1973, Heller founded Sequoia Pictures, Inc., a production house affiliated with Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

. The company's first production was Enter the Dragon
Enter the Dragon
Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts co-production with Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. studios, directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. This is Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973...

, the film that set off the explosion of interest in the martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

 genre and which introduced Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 to the international film market place. Eleven more films followed with an unprecedented financial success rate.

His production company, Paul Heller Productions produced First Monday in October
First Monday in October
First Monday in October is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. The title refers to the day on which the United States Supreme Court traditionally convenes following its summer recess....

, starring Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...

 and Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...

, and more recently the critically acclaimed British film, Withnail & I, written and directed by Bruce Robinson
Bruce Robinson
Bruce Robinson is an English director, screenwriter, novelist and actor. He is arguably most famous for writing and directing the cult classic Withnail and I , a film with comic and tragic elements, set in London during the 1960s which drew on his experiences as 'a chronic alcoholic and resting...

. He was the ground breaker in the cable TV feature market, producing the first made-for-cable feature film, Falcon's Gold, and then, Showtime's, Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...

, starring Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...

 and Margot Kidder
Margot Kidder
Margaret Ruth "Margot" Kidder is a Canadian-born American actress. She is perhaps best known for playing Lois Lane in the four Superman movies opposite Christopher Reeve, a role that brought her to widespread recognition....

.

Heller now only makes pictures that delight him from the first reading of the script. Following The Annihilation of Fish, is another film with writer-director Bruce Robinson
Bruce Robinson
Bruce Robinson is an English director, screenwriter, novelist and actor. He is arguably most famous for writing and directing the cult classic Withnail and I , a film with comic and tragic elements, set in London during the 1960s which drew on his experiences as 'a chronic alcoholic and resting...

, entitled The Block
The Block
-Places:231 North Vandeventer Saint Louis MO, 63108.Australia* The Block , the first Aboriginal land handbackUnited States* The Block at Orange, an open-air shopping and entertainment mall located in Southern California...

.

Television Production

Heller first has produced a television movie Wait Until Dark
Wait Until Dark
Wait Until Dark is a play by Frederick Knott.-Synopsis:Susy Hendrix is a blind Greenwich Village housewife who becomes the target of three con-men searching for the heroin hidden in a doll, which her husband Sam innocently transported from Canada as a favor to a woman who has since been murdered...

, which is distributed by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 and HBO in 1982. In the same year, he has produced CBS Television and Showtime's Falcon's Gold. In 1998, he was involved in ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

's David and Lisa
David and Lisa
David and Lisa is a small independent film directed by Frank Perry, often cited as one of his best works. Based on the novel by Theodore Isaac Rubin, the screenplay, written by Frank Perry's wife Eleanor, tells the story of a bright young man suffering from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

, produced with Oprah's Harpo Productions
Harpo Productions
Harpo Productions, Inc. is an incorporated US-based multimedia production company founded by Oprah Winfrey . It also includes Harpo Films & Harpo Radio, Inc....

.

During this time, Heller renewed his interest in teaching promising young students of film. Heller was approached by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 to develop a producing program for their new school in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 Center for Advanced Studies. He had previously taught Film and Television Design at both New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and founded the Community Film Workshop Council with the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

.

This was followed, over the years, by lectures at conferences and by teaching two Master Programs in Producing at The University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

, Los Angeles. He currently heads the Education and Outreach Committee of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...

, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.

Philanthropic Activities

In 1989, Heller founded ASK Theatre, a nonprofit group dedicated to new plays and playwrights, which works together with the Mark Taper Theatre in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, The Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Lincoln Center in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. He is also a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves on the Board of Directors of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...

 as well as on the board of the Hearst Castle Preservation Foundation. He is a member of the United Scenic Artists
United Scenic Artists
United Scenic Artists local USA 829, is a United States labor union of designers and artists in the entertainment industry. It is a nationwide autonomous Local of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes...

, the Directors Guild and the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...

.

Multimedia and theatrical

Heller has been a pioneer in the field of multimedia and theatrical presentations. His productions include The New York Experience, which played for sixteen highly successful years at Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...

, and The South Street Venture, a popular attraction for seven years at the Dockland of New York City. He has recently completed the extensive audiovisual and multimedia exhibits for the Skirball Cultural Center
Skirball Cultural Center
The Skirball Cultural Center is an educational institution in Los Angeles, California devoted to sustaining Jewish heritage and American democratic ideals. Open to the public since 1996, the Skirball Cultural Center is dedicated to exploring the connections between 4,000 years of Jewish heritage...

 in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and expects to begin work on the Hong Kong Museum of History
Hong Kong Museum of History
The Hong Kong Museum of History is a museum which preserves Hong Kong's historical and cultural heritage. It is located next to the Hong Kong Science Museum....

 in the near future.

Films

Released:
  • Blood and Steel: Making 'Enter the Dragon (2003) (with Warner Bros. Pictures
    Warner Bros.
    Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

    )
  • The Annihilation of Fish (1999) (with Regent Entertainment)
  • Fatal Inheritance (1993)
  • My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989) (with 20th Century Fox
    20th Century Fox
    Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

    /Miramax)
  • Withnail & I (1987) (with Paramont and Anchor Bay Entertainment
    Anchor Bay Entertainment
    Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...

    )
  • First Monday in October
    First Monday in October
    First Monday in October is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. The title refers to the day on which the United States Supreme Court traditionally convenes following its summer recess....

    (1981) (with Paramount Pictures
    Paramount Pictures
    Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

    )
  • The Promise
    The Promise (1979 film)
    The Promise is a 1979 film, released by was a Universal Pictures, which starred Kathleen Quinlan, Stephen Collins, and Beatrice Straight. It was directed by Gilbert Cates and produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller...

    (1979) (with Universal Pictures
    Universal Studios
    Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

    )
  • The Pack
    The Pack (1977 film)
    The Pack is a 1977 horror film about a pack of abandoned dogs who turn against humans in Seal Island.-Plot:A pack of feral dogs are attacking the people on Seal Island. One of the islanders, Jerry , must stop them....

    (1977) (with Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Hot Potato
    Hot Potato (film)
    Hot Potato is a 1976 action film written and directed by Oscar Williams. The film was a Weintraub and Heller production starring Jim Kelly. Jim Kelly also arranged his own fight scenes. Hot Potato was filmed on location in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is a follow-up to Black Belt Jones. The film was...

    (1976) (with Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Crazy Animals (1976) (with 20th Century Fox)
  • Dirty Knight's Work (1976)
  • The Barony (1975) (with Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • he Wilby Conspiracy (1975) (with United Artist)
  • Truck Turner
    Truck Turner
    Truck Turner is a 1974 blaxploitation film, starring Isaac Hayes and Yaphet Kotto, and directed by Jonathan Kaplan. The screenplay was written by Michael Allin, Jerry Wilkes and Oscar Williams...

    (1974) (with MGM
    Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
    Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

    )
  • Black Belt Jones
    Black Belt Jones
    Black Belt Jones is a 1974 American Blaxploitation action film. The main musical theme was performed by the funk guitarist Dennis Coffey. The film was featured as number 38 on the documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.-Plot:...

    (1974) (with Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Enter the Dragon
    Enter the Dragon
    Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts co-production with Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. studios, directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. This is Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973...

    (1973) (with Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Stop (1970) (with Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Secret Ceremony
    Secret Ceremony
    Secret Ceremony is a 1968 film, produced in Britain and released by Universal Pictures. It stars Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Robert Mitchum, Pamela Brown, and Peggy Ashcroft. Joseph Losey directed, from a script by George Tabori.-Plot:...

    (1968) (with Universal Pictures)
  • The Best of Laurel and Hardy (1967)
  • The Eavesdropper (1966) (with Columbia Pictures
    Columbia Pictures
    Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

    )
  • Once Upon a Tractor (1965)
  • David and Lisa
    David and Lisa
    David and Lisa is a small independent film directed by Frank Perry, often cited as one of his best works. Based on the novel by Theodore Isaac Rubin, the screenplay, written by Frank Perry's wife Eleanor, tells the story of a bright young man suffering from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

    (1962) (with Continental Distributing)


Upcoming:
  • Awaken the Dragon (2009)
  • Ticker (2009)

TV movie

  • David and Lisa
    David and Lisa
    David and Lisa is a small independent film directed by Frank Perry, often cited as one of his best works. Based on the novel by Theodore Isaac Rubin, the screenplay, written by Frank Perry's wife Eleanor, tells the story of a bright young man suffering from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

    (1998) TV Movie (co-exec. producer
    Executive producer
    An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...

    )
  • Falcon's Gold (1982) TV Movie (Exec. Producer)
  • Wait Until Dark
    Wait Until Dark
    Wait Until Dark is a play by Frederick Knott.-Synopsis:Susy Hendrix is a blind Greenwich Village housewife who becomes the target of three con-men searching for the heroin hidden in a doll, which her husband Sam innocently transported from Canada as a favor to a woman who has since been murdered...

    (1982) TV Movie (Producer)

External links

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