Saul Swimmer (April 25, 1936 – March 3, 2007)Saul Swimmer
at the

Social Security Death Index The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was a database of death records created from the Social Security Administration, United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File until 2014. Since 2014, public access to the updated Death Mas ...

via FamilySearch.org. Retrieved on January 1, 2013. was an American documentary

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

and

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

best known for the movie '' The Concert for Bangladesh'' (1972), the

George Harrison George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...

-led

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

show that was one of the first all-star benefits in

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

. He was also a co-producer of

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

' 1970 documentary ''

Let It Be Let It Be most commonly refers to: * ''Let It Be'' (Beatles album), the Beatles' final studio album, released in 1970 * "Let It Be" (Beatles song), the title song from the album It may also refer to: Film and television * ''Let It Be'' (1970 ...

''.

Biography

Early life and career

Born to a Uniontown,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, family that included a sister, Esther, and three brothers, Wolford and Alvin, and Herbert, Swimmer earned a bachelor's degree from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

in nearby Pittsburgh. Note: Erroneously gives death date as March 7; the

gives March 3. He began directing in his early twenties, gaining attention for his half-hour children's short ''

The Boy Who Owned a Melephant ''The Boy Who Owned a Melephant'' is a 1959 American short film directed by Saul Swimmer and featuring Tallulah Bankhead as narrator. Plot After seeing his first circus, young Johnnie ( Brockman Seawell) asks for an elephant to keep as a pet. To ...

'' (1959), narrated by actress Tallulah Bankhead and produced with Peter Gayle and Tony Anthony, who would become his frequent collaborators. Swimmer's biography at his company's website states the film won a Gold Leaf award at the Venice Film Festival, a claim that subsequently appears in many accounts, but that festival has no such award; in actuality, this award was from the Venice International Children's Film Festival. Following that short, Swimmer directed and, with Anthony, co-wrote the independent features ''

Force of Impulse '' Force of Impulse'' is a 1961 American drama film directed by Saul Swimmer and starring Robert Alda, Jeff Donnell and J. Carrol Naish.McCarty p.192 A high school student robs his own father's grocery store in order to raise the money to take his ...

'' (1961), a

Romeo and Juliet ''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...

story about a high school football player who turns to robbery, filmed in

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

, and ''Without Each Other'' (1962). The film was co-produced by Allen Klein and Peter Gayle with the film financed by Gayle's family's business.

Music and film

Following these dramas, Swimmer directed the

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

- musical comedy '' Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter'' (1968), starring the British pop group

Herman's Hermits Herman's Hermits are an English beat, rock and pop group formed in 1964 in Manchester, originally called Herman and His Hermits and featuring lead singer Peter Noone. Produced by Mickie Most, the Hermits charted with number ones in the UK a ...

. The movie was one of a handful of similar films released in the wake of the Beatles' mockumentary-style band feature '' A Hard Day's Night'' (1964) and the comic adventure '' Help!'' (1965). He broke into documentary filmmaking with the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

television special ''Around the World of Mike Todd'' (1968), about the movie producer Mike Todd. After serving as co-producer of the Neil Aspinall- Mal Evans-produced Beatles documentary ''Let It Be'' (1970), Swimmer and his indie-movie colleague Tony Anthony co-wrote and co-directed the surrealistic US- Italy road movie '' Come Together'' (1971), produced by Beatle

Ringo Starr Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...

and inspired by the Beatles song " Come Together"; and produced a

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

about a blind but deadly gunfighter, ''

Blindman ''Blindman'' (also known in Italian as ''Il Pistolero Cieco'', lit. "The Blind Gunfighter") is a 1971 Spaghetti Western film directed by Ferdinando Baldi and co-written and co-produced by Tony Anthony. The film's protagonist, played by Anthony, ...

'' (1971; also known as ''Il Ciceo'' and ''Il Pistolero Ciceo''), starring Anthony and Starr. The following year, Swimmer directed '' The Concert for Bangladesh'', organized by Beatle

with Ravi Shankar. They along with Starr, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and others performed to raise money for the charity UNICEF, earmarked to aid refugees from the newly independent nation of Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, who had relocated to India. In 1977, Swimmer directed the U.S.- Spain co-production '' The Black Pearl'' (a.k.a. ''La Perla Negra''), adapted from a

Scott O'Dell Scott O'Dell (May 23, 1898 – October 15, 1989) was an American writer of 26 novels for young people, along with three novels for adults and four nonfiction books. He wrote historical fiction, primarily, including several children's novels ...

children's

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

. He produced and directed the direct-to-video rock documentary '' We Will Rock You: Queen Live in Concert'' (1982), the record of a 1981 Montreal, Quebec, Canada show.

Later career

Swimmer developed the MobileVision Projection System, a pre-

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme F ...

giant-screen technology for projecting movies on a 60x80-foot screen. Swimmer said that after the 1991 death of Queen lead singer

Freddie Mercury Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the ...

, MovileVision distributed ''We Will Rock You'' in 20 countries. His final work was the documentary '' Bob Marley & Friends'', completed in 2005 and distributed beginning in 2006 after Swimmer worked on it for more than five years, using footage of the 1977 Rainbow concert in London, England that had been discovered in a London storage vault bombed by the Irish Republican Army. 2007.

Death

Swimmer, who moved to the Miami-area Key Biscayne, Florida, in the 1980s and to nearby Coral Gables, Florida in the 1990s, died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami on March 3, 2007.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Swimmer, Saul American documentary filmmakers 1936 births 2007 deaths People from Coral Gables, Florida People from Uniontown, Pennsylvania Film directors from Pennsylvania Film directors from Florida