Robert Newmyer
| Robert Newmyer | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 30, 1956 Washington, D.C. |
| Died | December 12, 2005 (aged 49) Toronto, Ontario |
Robert F. Newmyer (May 30, 1956 – December 12, 2005) was a producer of numerous films, both commercial and independent.
Robert Frederick Newmyer (Bobby) was born on May 30, 1956 in Washington, DC to James and Virginia Newmyer. He graduated from Sidwell Friends School in 1974, and received a bachelor's degree in economics from Swarthmore in 1978 and afterward worked as a real estate developer in Telluride, Colorado. In 1982 he received a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School in 1982.
According to long-time friend, documentary filmmaker Eames Yates, "Just before he graduated, he saw Spielberg's E.T.' and he came out and said, 'That's what I want to do'." Newmyer went on to hold a variety of positions at Columbia Pictures, before becoming a vice president of production and acquisitions.
Newmyer and Jeffrey Silver formed "Outlaw Productions", the name derived from Newmyer's favorite Clint Eastwood character, the outlaw Josey Wales. The production company had, for a time, a long-term deal with Warner Brothers. Chairwoman of Sony Motion Pictures Group, Amy Pascal said,"Bobby was a true maverick and a true risk-taker.
Newmyer was married to wife Deborah Jelin Newmyer for nineteen years. They have four children, Sofi, Teddy, James and Billi, all of Los Angeles; his parents, and his two sisters, Elsa Newmyer of the District of Columbia and Lory Newmyer of Hull, Massachusetts.
Paramount producer, Lorenzo diBonaventura, who worked with Newmyer at Warner Bros., recalled Newmyer's love of whitewater rafting, "Bobby looked at movies as he looked at life: with a great sense of passion and a great sense of risk-taking."
On December 12, 2005, Newmyer died at the age of 49 in Toronto, Ontario. Newmyer, a lifelong asthma sufferer, had a heart attack triggered by asthma, while working out in a health club. He was on location working on the film Breach.
In addition to the film Breach, at the time of his death, Newmyer had Santa Clause 3 in production, and Phat Girlz in postproduction. To finance the romantic comedy Phat Girlz,"he put up nearly $3 million of his own money, liquidating assets and mortgaging his homes. In June 2014, Newmyer told The New York Times, "I do find it terrifying and I would say, in waves, I am feeling, experiencing phenomenal stress for the past five or six months. I will clearly stay on this track until we finish this movie, exhibit it and it's sold to a distributor."
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