Not unlike Woody Allen’s fictional character Zelig, Julian Schlossberg has lived multiple lives. A renowned television, film and theatrical producer, the nearly 84-year-old Schlossberg has credits ranging from being a producer’s representative for the likes of Elia Kazan, Elaine May, John Cassavetes and George C. Scott to negotiating with Al Pacino, co-producing the “No Nukes” live concert film and serving as a Paramount Pictures vice president. It’s a wild ride he’ll be recounting at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre on June 1, where he’ll be hosting a screening of 1990’s “In the Spirit,” a comedy he produced. The Bronx native will also be regaling attendees with tales from his two memoirs—2023’s “Try Not to Hold It Against Me—A Producer’s Life” and last year’s “My First Book—Part 2: A Producer’s Life Continues.” The inspiration for both these rich narrative projects came out of the enormous downtime the pandemic gave this octogenarian force of nature.
“I was unable to create during COVID-19 and I try to create as much as I can all the time,” Schlossberg explained. “I was doing a play, but was afraid to go to rehearsals because I was unable to take the vaccine because I’m highly allergic to many things and so I thought I had to do something. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have wonderful dinner parties with great people. I’d tell great stories, be told I had to write a book and I would always say absolutely, having no intentions of ever writing one. [During the pandemic], I decided I’d write a chapter and see if my wife was interested in it. She was and I kept writing.”
In both books, Schlossberg shares his origins growing up as an only child in the Bronx, where he grew up amid a sea of local movie houses. His father took him to see his first film, the 1946 Marx Brothers dramedy “A Night in Casablanca,” when he was 4 (a film that Schlossberg would go on to own outright later in life). Equally formative for Schlossberg was when he went solo to see 1954’s “On the Waterfront” as a 12-year-old. It was where Elia Kazan, someone who became a huge influence and a future friend, first came on his radar.
“All my friends had seen ‘On the Waterfront’ and I went to see it alone,” Schlossberg recalled. “It was the first time I ever went to a movie alone and it was at the Kingsbridge Theater on Kingsbridge Avenue in the Bronx. Kazan directed that movie. He became such an important person in my life as someone who believed in me and felt I could become somebody.”
Schlossberg’s deep love and knowledge of film led to his becoming an account executive at the Walter Read Organization in the television division, where he was tasked with cutting deals to distribute films from the WRO library in various television markets around the country. Schlossberg was eventually promoted to the theater division before ascending to become vice president and head film buyer. The passion and appreciation he carried with him for storytelling in any medium landed him a side hustle as the host of “Movie Talk,” a four-hour nationally syndicated radio program during which time he interviewed hundreds of movie stars. Among his major gets were Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty. The combination of Schlossberg’s genuine interest, gregarious nature and Mensa-like cinematic insight propelled him into becoming a behind-the-scenes force, particularly on Broadway. It’s a lifetime ride richly detailed in his memoirs that one critic said is full of dishy stories that are never mean-spirited. It all still strikes him with a sense of wonder.
“I really must say I don’t consider myself a writer, but I do consider myself a storyteller,” Schlossberg said. I wanted to spin tales about whatever I remembered in my life that I thought might interest other people. One of the other exciting things in my life was that I grew up watching Woody Allen, Steve Allen, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Alan Arkin and Sid Caesar,” he said. “And all these people, I ended up being their producer. That, to me, was crazy and I’ve never gotten over that.”
Currently hosting two weekly podcasts, Schlossberg’s ongoing project is “Witnesses to the 20th Century,” a 14-hour series of one-hour interviews with some of the most prominent people who lived during it. Like everything he gets involved with, it’s a project he’s particularly passionate about, driven by an insatiable curiosity to learn.
“My whole career has been based on trying to have a conversation and not conduct an interview,” he said. “As I wrote in my books, I don’t come in with notes. I’d studied for the final, so to speak. By and large, I just wanted my guests to know we were just going to talk. Elaine May and I are doing ‘Witnesses’ together. She’s writing and directing and I’m producing and hosting. We finished seven of the 14 shows. We started at 1900 and went right to 1999. Its status is that I’m once again out there like Willy Loman, the salesman, trying to sell.”
Julian Schlossberg will be appearing on June 1 at Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave. in Huntington where he’ll be screening his 1990 film, “In the Spirit.” Visit www.cinemartscentre.org or call 631-423-7610 for more details.
