RIP Marshall Schlom

 

By Mike Barnes

1/26/2015

Marshall Schlom, a Hollywood script supervisor for four decades who worked with Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kramer, Mike Nichols and all the top directors of his day, has died. He was 86.

Schlom died Wednesday of complications from a fall at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, his daughter, Wendi, told The Hollywood Reporter.

His father was Herman Schlom, a top producer at RKO Studios who did such features as the film noir classic Born to Kill (1947) as well as several Dick Tracy movies.

Marshall Schlom’s incredible body of work includes Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), William Wyler’s Funny Girl (1968), Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), Franklin J. Schaffner’s Papillon (1973), Barry Levinson’s Rain Man (1988), John Hughes’ Uncle Buck (1989) and Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond (1981),

He worked with Kramer on Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Pressure Point (1962), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Ship of Fools (1965), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969), Bless the Beasts & Children (1971) and The Domino Killings (1977).

Schlom teamed with Herbert Ross on Funny Lady (1975), The Sunshine Boys (1975) and California Suite (1978); with Arthur Penn on The Chase (1966) and Night Moves (1975); with Richard Brooks on The Happy Ending (1969), $ (1971) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977); with Nichols on Silkwood (1983) and Postcards From the Edge (1990); and with Mel Brooks on Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), his final credit.

Schlom also served as script supervisor on the CBS series Perry Mason from 1963-66, worked on NBC's The Monkees and was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences foreign film committee for four decades.

Schlom attended the University of California at Berkeley and UCLA, then set out to join his father at RKO. Studio chief Howard Hughes would not permit relatives of employees to be hired, however, so he submitted his résumé under the name of Michael Scott and landed a job.

Talking about working with Hitchcock on Psycho, Schlom said in 2012 interview that the director “knew everything about making movies, it was his job to go to work and make movies.

“I can tell you without a doubt, he knew more about making movies than any other director that I’ve been associated with. He ran a master class for me, that’s the best way to describe it.”

In addition to his daughter Wendi, Schlom also is survived by his wife of 64 years, Dorothy; children Val and Marla; grandchildren Evan, Derek, Zoe, Micah, Jenna and Hunter; and sister Lois.

Born: 3/3/1928, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 1/21/2015, Woodland Hills, California, U.S.A.

Sergeants 3 – 1962

The Hired Hand – 1971

Oklahoma Crude - 1973