The Rest Of Your Life Is The Best Of Your Life
I read this obituary the other day that brought a smile to my face. How good would it be to die, and in your death you actually inspire those who are living.
Here is one example of exactly that…
For a late starter, the career of award-winning Hollywood producer David Brown took an extraordinarily successful course. The former journalist produced some major hits that not only became classics, but also made him – and his sometimes employer 20th Century Fox – plenty of money. They included Jaws, The Sting, Chocolat, A Few Good Men and Driving Miss Daisy.
He was a partner with Richard Zanuck in the early 1970s – when they produced the blockbusters Jaws, The Verdict and Cocoon – before Brown started his own career as a film and theatrical producer.
Brown was still producing movies such as Chocolat well into his 80s, including supervising filming on location.
Before going independent with Zanuck, he helped produce Elvis Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender, in 1956. Amazingly, that film covered its costs in its first week.
Successful as he was, it was not all roses for Brown as he was caught in the 1963 production debacle over Cleopatra, in which a saucy liaison between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and her illness cost the studio millions in delay. He made a comeback with no less than The Sound Of Music and followed it up with Patton starring George C. Scott.
Brown was exceptionally modest, a rarity in Hollywood.
He returned to writing late in life, publishing Brown’s Guide To Growing Grey in 1987, followed by a memoir, Let Me Entertain You in 1990, and the bestseller, The Rest Of Your Life Is The Best Of Your Life just a year later.
At 85, he worked on a Broadway production of Lehman’s Sweet Smell Of Success and produced Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Not a bad career for Brown, who went to Hollywood only because he was involved in a messy divorce and wanted a change of scenery.
Source: The Courier Mail
