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Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner died at his home in Paris, France, after suffering from an illness. He was 87. The longtime Los Angeles resident directed Sean Connery as James Bond in 1983′s Never Say Never Again and Peter Weller in 1990′s Robocop II. He was born in Philadelphia in 1923, and trained as a musician and in photography before creating documentaries and moving into feature films. It was because of his involvement in the Star Wars franchise that he was included by Carrie Fisher in her memoir Postcards From The Edge and played by Gene Hackman in the film version as the caring but also demanding film director having to put up with his star’s drug addiction.
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I was deeply saddened to learn of Mr. Kerschner’s passing. His interviews on “Empire of Dreams: The Story of the ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy” were some of my favorite moments. I’m so glad he took the time to impart his wisdom.
SIncerely,
Stephen Bono
MFA Candidate | NYU Tisch School of the Arts | Graduate Film
Grieving; he was my mentor at USC and I received a scholarship from AMPAS (2007-8) to intern with him. USC didn’t cancel classes the day before Thanksgiving; two years I was in his class while he taught until 10:00 p.m. Wednesday night.
Today and the next few days I’ll be continuing to tweet things he patiently taught me about screenwriting and storytelling: http://twitter.com/120pgs
The Empire Strikes Back was the best of all the Star Wars films thanks to Irvin Kershner.
RIP.
Day by day, night,bitter nights.
Dim the lights please a star has passed into the next sweeter galaxy.
It goes without saying the man gave us the best Star Wars flick of the bunch and that will probably always be his legacy, but he’s done other interesting work as well that’s worth going back to. Rest In Peace.
He is THE man that brought the best of Star Wars to our culture. RIP.
I met Irv at a story meeting almost twenty years ago. He was kind, incredibly smart, and fiercely frank. I still remember him launching a short treatise on narcissism. It ended with the following, which I have never forgotten:
“Do you know what a narcissist is? It’s someone with a bottomless need to be loved and the complete inability to love in return.”
RIP
Is it safe to say that The Empire Strikes Back is the best sequel ever made. Every frame is a work of celluoid art. RIP Kersh. You’ll be missed.
This is sad. I just saw him a few months ago in a doc called “The Nature of Existence” and his commentary was hilarious. RIP
Re:Carrie Fisher using Kershner as inspiration for Hackman’s character in Postcards From The Edge…Gene Hackman said he based the character on Richard Donner when he was in Superman. While both are probably true, when you have great writing performed by a great actor such as Hackman, you more often than not get a great performance.
The Kersch will be with you — always.
This is a very incomplete and superficial tribute to a really interesting director. In the 60′s and early 70′s, he got some of their best performances from stars who were better known for lesser work: Robert Shaw in Luck of Ginger Coffey, Sean Connery in A Fine Madness, Streisand in Up the Sandbox, George Segal in Loving. And he obviously made a huge and positive impression on them — for example, fifteen years after A Fine Madness, Connery chose him to direct Never Say Never Again. When Lucas chose him for the Star Wars sequel he got lots of criticism and just plain head-scratching, since Kerschner was known for these smaller personal films. Only after a few decades did people come around to realizing he had done a great job.
It’s sad everyone in Hollywood has such a short memory — they forget all this great stuff and mention Postcards from the Edge instead.