Irvin Shapiro

Irvin Shapiro (6 August 1906 – 1 January 1989) was an American producer, film importer and distributor who was responsible for introducing a number of influential foreign films to the United States, as well as handling the early work of some noted directors.

Biography

Shapiro was born on 6 August 1906 in Washington, D.C. In the early 1920s, while still a teenager, he developed an interest in cinema, writing film reviews for the "Washington Herald" and later managing the Wardman Park Hotel Theatre, a local cinema. Moving to New York, he became involved in the distribution of foreign films in America and independent films overseas, as well as working for a year at the publicity office of RKO Pictures. In 1932, he set up World Pictures (later renamed to Films Around The World) a film distribution company which also worked on the development of specialist cinemas. He headed the company until 1985, when he was forced to sell due to health problems (he was suffering from Parkinson's disease).

In over five decades as a distributor, Shapiro introduced American cinema-goers to many European films, including "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (d. Robert Wiene, 1920), "The Battleship Potemkin" {d. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925), "The Grand Illusion" (d. Jean Renoir, 1937), "Les Cousins" (d. Claude Chabrol, 1959) and "Breathless" (d. Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), and he was instrumental in helping end the American boycott of German films after World War II. He was also the first to handle films by American directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, George A. Romero, Sidney J. Furie and Sam Raimi (whose first film, "The Evil Dead" (1981), had its title suggested by Shapiro), and was one of the founders of the Cannes Film Festival.

Shapiro founded another company, Film Classics, which dealt with film reissues. In the 1950s, obtaining the rights to some 1940s films produced by MGM (among others), he became a pioneer in the release of films to television.

Irvin Shapiro died at his home in New York on 1 January 1989, due to complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 82.

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