Norman Jewison--motion picture director/producer--was born on July 21, 1927 in Toronto, Canada. He was interested in the world of theater and film from an early age, but had to work his way through college by taking a variety of jobs; from time to time he worked as a waiter, a vegetable picker and a taxi driver. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree, young Jewison took his $140 in savings and traveled by tramp steamer to England, where he became a writer and actor for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
When opportunities in Canadian television expanded, Jewison went home to become a producer/director for CBC. There he was associated with such top variety shows as The Big Revue, Wayne and Schuster, Showtime and Barris Beat. In 1958 the William Morris Agency suggested he leave Canada and go to New York under a three-year contract with CBS. His first assignment in American television was to revive the faltering Your Hit Parade which had just moved to CBS from NBC. In the late fifties and early sixties Jewison directed many highly acclaimed specials, starring such personalities as Judy Garland, Jackie Gleason, Harry Belafonte and Danny Kaye.
Jewison's successful television career served as prelude to what was to become his primary professional interest, the production and direction of motion pictures. In 1962 the director signed a four-picture contract with Universal Studios. Forty Pounds of Trouble (1962), The Thrill of It All (1963), Send Me No Flowers (1964), and The Art of Love (1965) were well-crafted and financially profitable; they gave Jewison the training and reputation that enabled him to make a different kind of film, pictures that combined entertainment with a point of view.
The Cincinnati Kid, made in 1965 for MGM, is considered by Jewison to be his first “serious” film. With its success he achieved the status he needed to become an independent producer/director for the Mirisch Corporation and United Artists. In the following years he made The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), a comedy about the absurdity of the cold war; In the Heat of the Night (1967), a study in race relations; The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), a sophisticated stab at the Establishment; Gaily, Gaily (1969), a story on Ben Hecht's reminiscences of his early life in Chicago; and Fiddler on the Roof (1972), an ageless “folk opera” about discrimination and the breakdown of tradition. In addition, in 1970 he produced The Landlord, another comedy about race relations, this time in an urban setting; directed Jesus Christ Superstar; produced Billy Two Hats; and both produced and directed Roller Ball and F.I.S.T.
Jewison's films have won many awards, including both the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Academy Award for best picture for In the Heat of the Night. In 1973, Jewison was named Director of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Jewison is interested in film primarily as an art, rather than as an industry. As a producer he is aware of the financial realities of filmmaking, but he is an advocate of full artistic control for the filmmaker. He feels the authenticity and atmosphere of location shooting cannot be matched in a studio back lot, and he does not consider stars necessary to the making of a successful film. His own films testify to the legitimacy of his philosophy.
Mr. Jewison and his wife, the former Margaret Dixon, have three children, Kevin, Michael and Jennifer.
