Zev Braun
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Zev Braun (October 19, 1928 – October 17, 2019) was an American motion picture producer. Though much of his work is in television (most notably as the executive producer of the Tour of Duty series) he was a successful filmmaker from the early 1960s onwards.

Key Information

Early life

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Braun was born in Chicago, Illinois. His interest in filmmaking led him fresh from studying Humanities and Classic Arts at the University of Chicago to enter movies while still serving as President of Braun International, his family's packaging firm.

Career

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1960s

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In 1964, his production of Goldstein won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at the Cannes Film Festival.[1]

1970s

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In 1974, his co-production of Maximilian Schell's The Pedestrian won the Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Film,[2] and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.[3] His production of The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, starring Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen, was voted Best Horror Film by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.[4]

Some of Braun's other productions in the 1970s include: Angela, starring Sophia Loren and John Huston; Freedom Road, starring Muhammad Ali and Kris Kristofferson; and The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, starring Peter Sellers and Helen Mirren.

1980s

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In 1984, Braun again teamed up with director Schell to co-produce Marlene, which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature along with winning the New York Film Critics Award, The National Society of Film Critics Award and the National Board of Review Award.[citation needed]

The 1987–88 television season saw Braun's company bring to the screen the two-hour television film, Stillwatch, starring Lynda Carter and Angie Dickinson; a four-hour miniseries, Murder Ordained, starring JoBeth Williams, Keith Carradine and Terry Kinney; and a two-hour NBC film, The Father Clements Story, starring Louis Gossett Jr., Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Carroll O'Connor (winner of the Christopher Award and CEBA Award).[citation needed] Tour of Duty, the highly acclaimed weekly prime-time series about the Vietnam War, also premiered in 1987, and ran for three successful seasons on CBS. Other television series from Braun include Murphy's Law, starring George Segal, which ran on ABC and Bagdad Cafe, starring Whoopi Goldberg and Jean Stapleton for CBS.

Another of Braun's productions in the 1980s is Where Are The Children?, starring Jill Clayburgh and Frederick Forrest.

1990s

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In 1991, Braun executive produced A Seduction in Travis County, a two-hour movie for CBS, starring Lesley Ann Warren, Peter Coyote and Jean Smart. Expanding into the cable marketplace, he executive produced Split Images, a two-hour film based upon the best selling novel by Elmore Leonard and starring Gregory Harrison. In 1994, Braun executive produced the critically praised four-hour mini-series Menendez: A Killing In Beverly Hills for CBS starring Edward James Olmos and Beverly D'Angelo. Also that year at CBS was Dominick Dunne's 919 Fifth Avenue, a two-hour pilot film that starred James Marsden and Denise Richards.

In 1996, Abducted: A Father's Love, a two-hour NBC film starring Chris Noth, Peter MacNicol and Stepfanie Kramer, turned out to be one of the highest rated television films for the year and was highly acclaimed, as well.[citation needed] Lethal Vows, starring John Ritter and Marg Helgenberger, aired on CBS in 1999, and proved to be the network's highest rated prime time program for the first 10 months of the year.[citation needed]

Braun then produced Edges of the Lord, a feature film shot in Poland and starring Haley Joel Osment and Willem Dafoe, distributed by Miramax Films.

2000

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Braun executive produced the CBS 2005 May Sweeps entry, Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution starring Janel Moloney and Terry Kinney.

Braun won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Movie for Television for the highly rated film he produced for Lifetime Television, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, directed by Agnieszka Holland starring Mercedes Ruehl.[5]

Most recently, Braun executive produced the Lifetime hit film The Gabby Douglas Story, which starred Regina King and Imani Hakim.[6]

Personal life

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Zev Braun was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He served on the Board of Trustees for The American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR),[7] and the board of directors for The Heart Touch Project.[8] Zev Braun was also a founding member of the board of directors for GIRF (the Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation) of the University of Chicago hospital and served as the chairman of the board for the International Kidney Institute at UCLA.[citation needed] Braun also served as a member of the board of directors for the Sabin Vaccine Institute.[9] He was awarded the City of Hope's Golden Key for his work in connection with this organization.[citation needed]

He was the father of the former Rice University Men's Basketball head coach Ben Braun.[10] and sons Jerry and Jon, an editor in Los Angeles.

He married his first wife, Joan, and they lived in Glencoe, Illinois.

Braun lived in Los Angeles and was the CEO of Braun Entertainment Group based in Culver City.[11] He died on October 17, 2019, two days before his 91st birthday.[11]

References

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Zev Braun

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Zev Braun was an American film and television producer known for his work on the acclaimed CBS Vietnam War drama series Tour of Duty and feature films including The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and the Academy Award-nominated documentary Marlene. [1] [2] Born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 19, 1928, Braun initially pursued humanities and classic arts at the University of Chicago before entering the film industry in the 1960s, where his early production Goldstein earned the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. [2] He went on to produce a diverse range of projects over more than five decades, including the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated The Pedestrian (co-produced with Maximilian Schell), the horror film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (starring Jodie Foster), and the Oscar-nominated documentary Marlene about Marlene Dietrich. [2] Braun served as executive producer on Tour of Duty (1987–1990), a series noted for its realistic portrayal of the Vietnam War, and later focused on numerous made-for-television movies often drawn from real-life events, such as The Gabby Douglas Story, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story (which received a GLAAD Media Award), and Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution. [1] [2] A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Braun was also active in philanthropy, serving on boards for organizations including amfAR and the Saban Vaccine Institute. [2] He died in Los Angeles, California, on October 17, 2019, at the age of 90. [1]

Early life and education

Zev Braun was born on October 19, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. [3] He attended Sullivan High School in Chicago. [3] He also attended Marquette University. [3] Braun did graduate work in the humanities and classic arts at the University of Chicago. [4] Prior to entering the film industry in the early 1960s, he rejected a career managing his family's bottle business. [3]

Film career

Breakthrough in feature films (1960s–1970s)

Zev Braun achieved a significant breakthrough as a feature film producer during the 1960s and 1970s with several critically recognized productions. His debut production, Goldstein (1964), co-directed by Philip Kaufman, won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. [3] [5] He co-produced The Pedestrian (1973), directed by Maximilian Schell, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language in 1974 and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. [6] [3] Braun produced The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), starring Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen, which was awarded Best Horror Film by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. [7] His other credits from this period include Angela starring Sophia Loren and John Huston, and The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu starring Peter Sellers and Helen Mirren. [2]

Documentaries and later features (1980s–2000s)

In the 1980s, Zev Braun co-produced the documentary Marlene (1984), directed by Maximilian Schell, which examines the life and career of Marlene Dietrich through interviews and archival footage. [3] The film earned a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 57th Academy Awards, with Braun and Karel Dirka credited as producers. [8] It also received Best Documentary honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. ) Braun produced the feature film Where Are the Children? (1986), directed by Bruce Malmuth and adapted from Mary Higgins Clark's novel, starring Jill Clayburgh as a mother whose children are kidnapped. In 2001, he produced the wartime drama Edges of the Lord, directed by Yurek Bogayevicz and starring Haley Joel Osment as a Jewish boy hidden in the Polish countryside and Willem Dafoe as a priest. [9] This marked one of his later feature contributions during a period when his work increasingly focused on television projects. [3]

Television career

Tour of Duty

Zev Braun served as executive producer of the CBS drama series Tour of Duty, which depicted the experiences of an American infantry platoon serving in combat during the Vietnam War. [10] [3] Described as offering a "grunt’s-eye view" of the conflict, the series aimed to portray the realities of war. [10] Braun emphasized that the production's purpose was to show "the reality of war," including its difficult and unflinching elements. [10] The show aired from 1987 to 1990 over three seasons, comprising 58 episodes in total. [2] It remains one of Braun's most notable contributions to television. [1] [3]

Other television productions

Zev Braun executive produced numerous television projects, encompassing miniseries, TV movies, and network series. [2] His credits include the 1987 miniseries Murder Ordained and the TV movie The Father Clements Story (1987), the latter of which won the Christopher Award and the CEBA Award. [2] Braun also served as executive producer on the ABC series Murphy's Law and the CBS series Bagdad Cafe. [2] His subsequent work featured executive producer roles on the TV movies A Seduction in Travis County (1991), Abducted: A Father's Love (1996), Lethal Vows (1999), Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution (2005), and A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story (2006), which received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Movie for Television. [2] Braun additionally produced the 1994 miniseries Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills and executive produced The Gabby Douglas Story in 2014. [2] These productions highlighted his ongoing involvement in fact-based dramas and biographical stories across several decades. [2]

Personal life

Family

Zev Braun had three sons: Ben Braun, who served as head basketball coach at Rice University, Jonathon Braun, an editor in Los Angeles, and Jeremy Braun; he also had a daughter, Sue-Ling. He was survived by his wife, Mayling. Later in life, Braun lived in Los Angeles.[3][11]

Philanthropy and civic engagement

Board service and charitable work

Zev Braun served as a trustee on the board of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting innovative research aimed at ending the global AIDS epidemic.[12] amfAR was founded in 1985 and is known for its significant contributions to AIDS philanthropy; it has been supported by notable figures in entertainment and beyond.[12] His tenure as a trustee continued until his death in October 2019, as documented in the organization's IRS Form 990 filings, where he received no compensation for the role.[13] Braun also served on the board of the Saban Vaccine Institute. This board service reflected his engagement in charitable efforts focused on public health and medical research during his later years.[13]

Death

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