Ted Demme was born on October 26, 1963 in New York City, New York, USA as Edward Demme. He was a director and producer, known for Blow (2001), Life (1999) and Beautiful Girls (1996). He was married to Amanda Scheer-Demme. He died on January 13, 2002 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
October 26, 1963, New York City, New York, United States
Died
January 13, 2002, Santa Monica, California, United States
Place Of Birth
New York City, New York, USA
Profession
Director, Producer, Actor
Education
State University of New York at Cortland
Spouse
Amanda Scheer-Demme (m. 1994–2002)
Awards
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie
Star Sign
Scorpio
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Trademark
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Movies and short films that often cast comedian Denis Leary
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I tried to stick to my game plan, which was always being aware of what my A story was - the love story between a father and his son, and that son and his daughter.
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That's why I'm really trying to produce my own stuff. This film was so good, because I produced it myself, and developed it, and made it with New Line, which is a smaller studio, so I was in control of a lot of stuff that I wasn't in control of for my other films.
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I think, on a larger note, that filmmakers and studios should start to tuck it in a little bit, because films wouldn't have the pressure they have if the word wasn't out about how expensive they were.
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The thing that's great about those guys at Miramax is the Weinstein brothers. They are the two funniest guys I've ever met in my life.
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What I think happens today is that a lot of filmmakers look at other films that are retro pieces, like L.A. Confidential, and say, oh, that's period. We didn't want to do the stereotypical stuff.
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There are a lot of films that are drug dramas, and we didn't want to tell Scarface again.
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You know, I think everything I do cinematically for the rest of my life will probably have some direct route back to Jonathan. But I love him to death. He's like my best friend and my big brother.
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I'm at Miramax now, where I've actually been treated like a Prince.
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The older I get the more I realize there's no real good guys or real bad guys, and I'm curious about how the good guys got good and how the bad guys got bad.
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But my humble opinion is, I'm not quite sure where I stand on the legalization of drugs - though, if tequila is legal, pot should probably be legal.
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I was influenced by European movies, old Fellini, old Kurosawa - any sort of foreign film.
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I felt that as long as we were being honest, and that we didn't bend the truth to accomplish another goal, to be entertaining or to be a happy ending, I was confident that we'd be able to tell the story the way it happened.
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And then we watched an amazing number of movies from the late '60s and '70s, which is my favorite time, and we studied their camera movements, their stocks, the way they lit stuff, the colors they used.
The original ending of The Ref (1994) had Denis Leary being caught by the cops to show the son that a life of crime leads nowhere. However, after screening the movie to a test audience and receiving negative comments about the ending, Ted changed it. He later admitted he regretted the change.
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Musician Greg Dulli, who appears with his band, The Afghan Whigs, in Demme's film, Beautiful Girls (1996), was so distraught when he heard of his death that he scrapped a nearly completed album for his band, The Twilight Singers, and wrote an entirely new set of songs.
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Coroners announce that a small amount of cocaine found in Demme's body may have caused his fatal thrombotic heart attack and have ruled the death accidental. [February 2002]
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He and his wife, Amanda Scheer-Demme, had a 5-year-old daughter and a 2-month-old son, as of January 2002.
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Started his career from the bottom rung, working as a production assistant at MTV before going on to create Yo! MTV Raps (1988) and directing other spots, including the cable network's infamous famous black-and-white rants starring then-unknown cigarette-sucking funny guy Denis Leary.
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Collapsed after playing in a celebrity basketball game for the NBA Entertainment League and died a few hours later at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica.
$13 Million
