In Remembrance: Jack Wiener

     Jack Wiener, the producer of the films as The Eagle Has Landed (1976) and F/X (1986), has passed away in Los Angeles, California on December 26, 2005. He was 79.

     Born in Paris, France in 1926, Wiener joined the French Free Army at age 18 and served as a driver and translator during the Allied advance across Europe. Wiener immigrated to the United States in 1949 and worked briefly in the hotel industry before coming to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios’ publicity department. In 1960 he moved to Columbia Pictures, working first as an advertising executive and then as a production executive.

     In 1973, Wiener struck out as an independent producer by forming Kelson Productions. Although his first film produced, the 1974 horror spoof Vampira, was critically panned, his second film, the World War Two adventure The Eagle Has Landed, fared much better. Wiener followed up with another World War Two-era adventure Escape To Athena in 1979.

     After the poorly received Green Ice (1981), Wiener scored another hit with the 1986 thriller F/X, the story of a movie special effects technician who is hired by the FBI to fake the murder of a mob informant about to enter the Witness Relocation Program. The film spawned a sequel, F/X 2, in 1991 and a television series which ran from 1996 to 1998.