Bert Schneider
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Berton "Bert" Schneider (May 5, 1933 – December 12, 2011) was an American movie producer, who was behind a number of important and topical films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The son of Columbia Pictures president Abraham Schneider, onetime president of Columbia Pictures, the younger Schneider tended toward the rebellious. He briefly attended Cornell University but was expelled. He was born in New York City.
Because of his radical activities, the army rejected him. In the early Sixties, he went to work for Columbia's television division Screen Gems. In 1965, Schneider teamed up with Bob Rafelson to form Raybert Productions. It was Schneider and Rafelson who brought The Monkees, a situation comedy about a fictional rock band (who became a real group to meet public demand, and their own aspirations), to network television, in 1966.
The success of the Monkees allowed Schneider and Rafelson to break into feature films, first with the counterculture film Head in 1968, starring The Monkees and featuring a screenplay cowritten by Jack Nicholson. Unfortunately, the movie bombed in its initial release, with Monkees fans disappointed that the disjointed, stream-of-consciousness ring of stories wasn't just an expanded episode, and 'hipper' audiences staying away in droves. A retrospective showing in 1973 helped turn critical opinion around, and today Head is largely praised and enjoyed as a Sixties period piece.
They had their first major success with Easy Rider the next year (1969), which ushered in the era of New Hollywood, then followed it up with Five Easy Pieces, which Rafelson directed, in 1970. Schneider and Rafelson added a partner, Stephen Blauner, and Raybert turned into BBS Productions. They went on to make a series of groundbreaking films, including Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971) and Rafelson's The King of Marvin Gardens (1972).
In 1975, Schneider earned a Best Documentary Oscar for producing Hearts and Minds (1974).
Peter Fonda based his character Terry Valentine in The Limey partly on Schneider, according to Fonda's interview on the DVD.
Schneider was once married and divorced to Judy, they had 2 children, Jeff and Audrey.
He died of natural causes aged 78 in Los Angeles on December 12, 2011. He is survived by his son and daughter.
