|
|
 |
| Art Murphy exits |
|
Webcentral -- Jun 18, 2003 B.O. guru who made a difference
By GEOFFREY BERKSHIRE
Los Angeles, June 17 – Arthur D. Murphy (Murf), who pioneered the field of box office reporting in his years at Daily Variety and who was a cornerstone of USC's Peter Stark film-producing program, died Monday (16) in San Luis Obispo of lung cancer. He was 70.
Murf spent nearly 30 years on the staff of the paper. By holding up a microscope to studios' annual reports and analyzing box office data, Murf set the standard for the way show biz is reported now by all media. He helped raise the profile on financial and economic analyses of the film industry and invented various economic indicators, most notably "Variety's Boxoffice Index", which tracked the financial performance of films long before weekly box office reporting became a national news staple.
Among his other duties at the paper, he was principal film critic from December 1964 until October 1978, signing his reviews Murf. As a critic, he had a high batting average for predicting a film's box office success (or failure).
Born in Worcester, Mass., on Dec. 20, 1932, Murphy was a math major at Worcester's College of the Holy Cross. His education was paid for by the U.S. Navy's ROTC program and he went on to spend a decade in the Navy following his graduation in June 1954.
He served variously as a division officer, department head and navigator of Destroyer-type ships. Ultimately achieving the rank of Lieutenant, he served as Commanding Officer on an LST (an amphibious force ship used to transport troops and tanks). Murphy's time in the Navy brought him to California and that's where he would remain following his honorable discharge in December 1964.
At that point, Murf made his seemingly illogical career shift into entertainment journalism. He wrote a letter to Tom Pryor, who was then editor of Daily Variety, analyzing the film business. Pryor was impressed and immediately hired him.
In addition to film criticism and box office analysis, Murf contributed regular business news and feature stories to the paper until his shift to part-time status in 1979. He retained a part-time association with Daily Variety as a contributor until 1993.
In the late 1960s, he left reporting to work for Universal, but returned to Variety after a year. Murg began his teaching career at USC with a graduate seminar in the economics of the motion picture business in the fall semester of 1974. His original intent was to organize thoughts for a book about the economic history and structure of the American film industry. However, when he shifted to full time at USC in 1978, his attention turned to creating a two-year graduate-level program in film management that would combine elements of the cinema and business schools.
The idea was supported by contributions from the film community including a million-dollar pledge from producer Ray Stark who wished to start a program in memory of his son Peter, who had died a decade earlier at the age of 23.
The Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program was founded in 1979 and Murphy served as founding director for 12 years. He remained on the professional faculty until 1998. The Stark program was the first formal academic program in the U.S., which specialized in the basic training of operating executives and producers in the film and television industry.
In 1984 Murf launched Art Murphy's Boxoffice Register,an annual mail-order book of North American box office revenues. It was published each year until 1995. He also served as a special correspondent for The Hollywood Reporter from 1993 to 1996.
Murphy seemed to enjoy his reputation as a curmudgeon. One day in the 1980s, he walked into the Daily Variety office with his leg in a cast, due to a skydiving accident. With his limp, squinty gaze and trademark scowl, someone observed that he looked like the Long John Silver of box office reporting.
He seemed contemptuous of small talk, but then he would suddenly get very chatty, or start playing with his boxer dog Eddie – his constant companion, even in the newsroom – and newcomers would express surprise at his reputation for being unfriendly.
He was extremely bright and seemed to enjoy his role as elder statesman to students and young reporters. However, he also cultivated his reputation as a loner and a terror – he was quick to point out errors in the work of colleagues or students – and he laughed at scandalous rumors of his private life. His hobbies included jazz, reading, pinball and, of course, film.
He was Art or Murf to friends, but never Arthur.
Services held Monday (23) at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Hollywood, with burial to follow at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills.
/// This article was forwarded to us courtesy of Daily Variety, for which we are greatly appreciative.
. . . and now a farewell from The Hollywood Reporter
By DUANE BYRGE
Arthur D. Murphy, the entertainment industry's pre-eminent economic analyst for more than three decades, has died. He was 70.
Murphy, who went by the monikers Art, A.D. or Murf, is recognized for establishing motion picture boxoffice coverage. He died Monday at Woodside Convalescent Hospital in San Luis Obispo, Calif., after a long battle with cancer. A longtime film critic and boxoffice analyst for Daily Variety, where he was regarded as an institution, Murphy joined The Hollywood Reporter in 1993 as chief boxoffice consultant and analyst. In addition to his boxoffice coverage for both papers, Murphy published his own Boxoffice Register, an annual cumulative consolidation and index of motion picture performance figures. His figures were considered to be the most accurate of any analyst covering the theatrical motion picture beat, and he was widely quoted.
Boxoffice information itself was not readily available until around 1981, except for disclosures on such films as Jaws and Star Wars. By the early '80s, grosses on high-profile releases became standardized. Murphy was the first to organize and chart that information and put it into a meaningful form. He organized the grosses by distributor, charting the market share of each distributor every few weeks.
Respected for his boxoffice acumen and feared for his no-tolerance limit for boxoffice fabrications, Murphy was known to send shivers through distribution executives whom he suspected (often quite rightly) were padding their boxoffice figures. He was not loathe to call attention to such miscreants in print, and sparks sometimes flew.
In 1979, Murphy founded the Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program at USC. It was the first graduate program in film producing in U.S. education. He served as active founding director for 12 years and was part of the faculty of the program since 1990. Murphy had begun teaching part time in what was then known as the USC Division of Cinema-Television in 1974.
In founding the Stark program, Murphy started from scratch. There was no model. He put together curriculum and procured instructors. The first class of the program graduated in 1981. The program was immediately embraced by the film industry, which respected Murphy's professionalism and keen knowledge of the movie industry.
For years, the Stark program remained the only one of its kind. Notable graduates are numerous, including ER's John Wells, Castle Rock's Liz Glotzer, such producers as Stacey Sher and Edward Saxon and former Hollywood Reporter editor Bruce Binkow.
With his stern visage and no-nonsense style, Murphy was a taskmaster who won the respect and admiration of his students. His earthy delivery, packed with industry anecdotes and examples, was dubbed "The Art Murphy Show." He ran his classes like the commanding officer of a military vessel, which he once was. He had a penchant for punctuality, and his classes ran via a clock labeled "Art Murphy Mean Time." Another peccadillo: Students could not use the word "movie," ever.
At USC's 1991 celebration of its first decade of the Stark program, more than 80% of the students who went through the program showed up at a black-tie dinner to honor Murphy. The evening was packed with affectionate stories, anecdotes and a 22-minute film paying tribute to Murphy – No More Mr. Nice Guy.
During the festivities, USC's Kathy Fogg said: "We always tell prospective students we need aggressive and self-confident people so they can survive – not in the industry but in Art's class."
At the tribute, USC School of Cinema-Television dean Frank Daniel presented a bronze plaque to be placed in the school's George Lucas Building honoring Murphy's "pioneer effort in creating the first film business education program in the world."
Murphy, born Dec. 20, 1932, in Worcester, Mass., graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester in 1954 and then served 10 years as a line officer in the Navy. He earned a master's degree in systems analysis and operations research in 1962 from the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
He was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1964 and launched his entertainment journalism career, beginning that year at Daily Variety, where he spent nearly 30 years as a film critic, financial editor, film editor and financial analyst for Daily Variety and Variety. He resigned in August 1993 to join The Hollywood Reporter.
In 1974, he began teaching a graduate course at the USC Division of Cinema-Television, prompted by his desire to organize his thoughts for a book about the economic history and structure of the American film industry.
Desk |
|
| More from this Mugg |
|
|
 |
|
| Art Murphy – the b.o. numbers man who died June 16 at age 70. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
