American producer Walter Mirisch, known for West Side Story or Some like it hot, has died at the age of 101, the Academy of Oscars announced on Sunday February 26. The Oscar winner, whose career spanned six decades, was also a former president of the Academy. The latter hailed a “true visionary” who had a “powerful impact on the film community and the Academy. […] His passion for cinema and the Academy never wavered, and he remained a very dear friend and adviser”.
Walter Mirisch, born in New York on November 8, 1921, has been honored three times by the Academy. He received the Best Picture Oscar for In the Heat of the Night (1967), the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for the "constantly high quality of his film production" and the Jean-Hersholt Humanitarian Award.. Walter Mirisch was “one of the most prolific producers in Hollywood history,” the Academy continued. His production company, Mirisch Company, created in 1957 with his brothers Harold and Marvin, was the cradle for several classic films such as Some Like It Hot (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink Panther (1963) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).