About Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison (July 21, 1926 – January 20, 2024) was a Canadian filmmaker. He is known for directing films which addressed topical social and political issues, often making controversial or complicated subjects accessible to mainstream audiences. Among numerous other accolades, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director three times in three separate decades, for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Moonstruck (1987). He was nominated for an additional four Oscars, three Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, and won a BAFTA Award. He received the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1999. Born and raised in Toronto, Jewison began his career at CBC Television in the 1950s, moving to the United States later in the decade to work at NBC. He made his feature film debut in 1962, with the comedy 40 Pounds of Trouble, and embarked on a motion picture directing career that spanned over 40 years. His notable films included The Cincinnati Kid (1965), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Rollerball (1975), F.I.S.T. (1978),...And Justice for All (1979), A Soldier's Story (1984), Agnes of God (1985) and The Hurricane (1999). In 1988, Jewison founded the Canadian Film Centre. In 2003, he received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement for his multiple contributions to the film industry in Canada. He was Chancellor of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, his alma mater, from 2004 until 2010. For four decades, he worked out of a fifth-floor office in his home at 18 Gloucester Street, a former furniture factory. In 2001, City of Toronto honored Jewison by naming Norman Jewison Park across the street in his honor. In 2023, the Hazelton Hotel named its screening room after him. In 1958 Jewison was recruited to work for NBC in New York, where his first assignment was Your Hit Parade, followed by The Andy Williams Show. His breakthrough film proved to be The Cincinnati Kid (1965), a drama starring Steve McQueen, and Jewison considered it one of his personal favourites because it was his first challenging drama.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.