Gerry Blattner (real first name Gerard) was a British film producer who worked on many films produced by
Warner Bros. in the United Kingdom.
Career
Gerry Blattner was a British film producer and executive producer, best known for producing the Oscar- and
BAFTA-nominated and Golden Globe winning feature film ''
The Sundowners'' (1960).
Son of
Ludwig Blattner (also a film producer, as well as an inventor), he followed his father into the film business. He was a production supervisor on ''
My Lucky Star'' (1933), which was filmed at the
Blattner Studios in Elstree. He was a production manager on ''
The Edge of the World'' (1937) at the age of 24, a film produced by
Joe Rock, who leased a studio amongst the
Elstree Studios complex from Gerry's father in 1934 and appointed Gerry the studio manager. By the 1950s he was producing or overseeing the production of many of the
Warner Bros. films made at Elstree and elsewhere in Europe such as ''
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.'' (1951), ''
Where's Charley?'' (1952) as producer, ''
Land of the Pharaohs'' (1955) as production manager, and ''
Fanny'' (1961). Although
Raoul Walsh, with whom he worked on ''Captain Horatio Hornblower'', described Gerry Blattner as the "studio head" in his autobiography (and mistakenly called him "Jerry"), he was actually the head of Warner Bros. European Film Productions.
In the contemporary Australian publicity handouts for ''The Sundowners'', the section describing the choice of locations quotes (and describes) Gerry Blattner thus:
In 1976 the television adaptation of
I, Claudius was produced by arrangement with Gerry Blattner Productions.
Personal life
Although born in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
in 1913, the later years of his childhood were spent in
Hertfordshire after his father bought the
Ideal Film Company studio in Elstree in 1928. When his father committed suicide in 1935, Gerry was only 22 years old. He married in 1943 during the production of the film ''
Theatre Royal'', which starred
Flanagan and Allen:
Barbara K. Emary recalled that they gave a china tea set as a wedding present, but dropped it as a joke as it was being handed over. He had one daughter, Sandra, whose marriage to David Benson was attended by many film star friends of her father. Gerry and his first wife Pamela also lived in
Elstree while he was working for Warner Bros.
Simon Cowell
Simon Phillip Cowell (; born 7 October 1959) is an English television personality and businessman. He has judged on the British television talent competition shows ''Pop Idol'' (2001–2003), ''The X Factor (British TV series), The X Factor UK ...
's parents lived next door,
and Gerry is credited with helping Simon to obtain his first job in showbusiness
[Cowell, S. (2003) ]
"I Don't Mean to Be Rude, But..."
', Broadway Books, as a runner on the production of ''
The Shining'', which was shot at Elstree Studios by Warner Bros. Gerry died in the early 1990s.
Gerry and his father were honoured by the naming of Blattner Close in Elstree in the mid-1990s.
References
External links
*
Blattner Close at streetmap.co.uk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blattner, Gerry
1913 births
1990s deaths
British film producers
British people of German-Jewish descent
Film people from Liverpool
People from Elstree