In Remembrance: Martin Jurow

     Producer Martin Jurow has passed away on February 12, 2004 of Parkinson’s Disease in Dallas, Texas. He was 92.

     Jurow was born on December 14, 1911 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1935, Jurow graduates from Harvard Law School following doing his undergraduate work at William And Mary College. His first job was with the New York Law firm of Nathan Burkan, a top entertainment lawyer whose clients included Goerge M. Cohan, Mae West, and Al Jolson.

     Jurow produced or co-produced some of director Blake Edward’s greatest films, including 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, the 1964 Peter Sellers comedy The Pink Panther and 1965’s comedy The Great Race starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood. Jurow was also a producer on director Sidney Lumet’s The Fugitive Kind (1959), starring Marlon Brandon and 1959’s The Hanging Tree, starring Gary Cooper.  

     Jurow also produced the Blake Edwards’ scripted Soldier In The Rain (1963) and co-produced the Oscar award-winning James L. Brooks tearjerker, Terms of Endearment (1983) starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson.

     Contrary to popular Hollywood legend, it was Jurow, not Don Corleone, who got Frank Sinatra the role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). Jurow went on to also be a very successful Broadway producer.

     He showcased his career in his 2001 memoir Marty Jurow Seein' Stars: A Show Biz Odyssey.

-John Gibbon