LOS ANGELES — — Walter Mirisch, the astute and Oscar winning film producer who oversaw such classics as"Some Like It Hot,""West Side Story" and"In the Heat of the Night," has died of natural causes, theMirisch died on Friday in Los Angeles, according to a statement from the academy's CEO Bill Kramer and its president Janet Yang.
As a producer, Mirisch aggressively recruited top filmmakers such as Billy Wilder and Norman Jewison, then gave them freedom to craft the movies as they saw fit. Mirisch entered the movie business in his teens, advancing from usher to management jobs with a theater chain before going on to production work on low-budget action flicks and Westerns in the late 1940s.
Their company started with a handful of Westerns before producing 1959's"Some Like It Hot," the Wilder comedy with Marilyn Monroe co-starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as cross-dressing musicians running from the mob. Mirisch was also among a handful of filmmakers Sidney Poitier acknowledged in his speech at the 2002 Academy Awards when he accepted an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
"We've worked with brilliant directors and producer-directors, and I must say that the relationship with each of them has been entirely different," he said.
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