Latest in United Artists

John Dartigue, a 22-year Warner Bros executive who rose to VP Publicity and supervised campaigns for such hits as The Fugitive and The Dark Knight and after starting his career at United Artists and working on the first 10 James Bonds pics, has died. He was 82. A family spokesperson told Deadline…

Cordial yet reserved, the man seated across from me seemed well cast as a CEO. We had just attended a board meeting as “outside” directors, and he was mulling the big question: “How much disruption and cost cutting can you apply to a company, yet still keep it functional?" With a shrug of resignation, he dug an…

Eric Pleskow, who ran United Artists, co-founded and led Orion Pictures and produced John Boorman’s Beyond Rangoon, died today in Westport, CT. He was 95. The Austria native also has served as president of the Vienna International Film Festival since 1998. The Viennale announced his death but did not provide any…

EXCLUSIVE: Sometimes amid the hurly-burly it’s easy to forget why we’re in this game (or covering it). Here’s a trailer to remind us. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, United Artists is being celebrated by MGM with a special trailer on Deadline. Founded in 1919 by D.W Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford…

BREAKING: MGM and Annapurna Pictures have branded a joint venture United Artists Releasing. The revived label will pool the distribution resources of Annapurna, MGM and Orion into a cohesive apparatus that will release films generated by all three, supplemented by select third party films. The hope is to create a more…

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed director, producer, journalist and committed immigration activist Jose Antonio Vargas. The agency has also signed Vargas’s non-profit media organization Define American. Vargas is best known for his work as a journalist for the Washington Post and a staunch advocate for immigration rights…

Veteran TV host and comedy writer Denis Norden has died aged 96, his family has said. Best known as the frontman for long-running ITV blooper show It’ll Be Alright On The Night, Norden died on Wednesday morning following a spell in a London hospital. He hosted the hit ITV series from 1977 until his retirement aged 84…

EXCLUSIVE: German actor Frederick Lau, who starred in Dennis Gansel's socio-political thriller The Wave, has signed with London-based talent agency United Agents. The young actor, who has more than 50 roles under his belt, most recently won critics over for his role as streetwise alpha male Sonne in Sebastian…

Darcie Denkert, a longtime MGM/United Artists executive and pioneer for women in entertainment law, has died. She was 64. Her family said she died June 9 at her home in West Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer. Denkert started out as a Broadway theater lawyer in New York but spent most of her career at United…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business. FLEMING: I found it interesting that audiences turned up their noses at A Walk Among The Tombstones, a thriller that had what…

EXCLUSIVE: Is a fight over the right to use the name and work and trademark of America's Sweetheart heading to court? An announcement posted April 2nd by the 10-year-old Mary Pickford Institute of Film Education claims its yearly funding of $500,000 was "yanked by its long time supporter the Mary Pickford Foundation"…