Film director Norman Jewison of Moonstruck and Fiddler on the Roof dies at 97

Acclaimed film director Norman Jewison has died at the age of 97. Norman Jewison directed the likes of Cher in Moonstruck, Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night and Chaim Topol in Fiddler on the Roof. His publicist Jeff Sanderson revealed that Norman Jewison, who had been nominated for an Oscar for best director three times, died peacefully at his home. He did not release any other details. 

Five of his works received Oscar nominations for best picture - In the Heat of the Night, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, Fiddler On the Roof, Moonstruck and A Soldier's Story.

Cher, who won a best actress  Oscar for the 1987 romantic comedy Moonstruck, paid tribute to him on X, formerly known as Twitter and said “Farewell Sweet Prince. Thank U for one of the greatest, happiest, most fun experiences of my life.” She also said that “Without U, I would not have my beautiful golden man.”

The Times reported that Lee Grant, the Oscar-winning actress who was blacklisted in Hollywood during the 1950s owing to her perceived links to left-wing politics, thanked Jewison for casting her in the social drama In the Heat of the Night. “Norman Jewison is a giant and I am in his debt,” she said. “He gave me back a career at the end of the blacklist.”

Norman Jewison also directed Jesus Christ Superstar, A Soldier’s Story, Only You, and The Hurricane. His last film was the thriller The Statement which starred Michael Caine and Tilda Swinton. Norman received the Academy’s Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1999. 

Norman Jewison once said that “The movies that address civil rights and social justice are the ones that are dearest to me.” Norman was born to a Methodist family in Toronto on July 21, 1926. The New York Times reported that “The family was Methodist, but because of his surname, young Norman was teased and bullied by schoolmates who assumed he was Jewish. A later formative brush with bigotry came while he was on a hitchhiking trip through the segregated American south in the 1940s. On the outskirts of Memphis, he was chastised by a driver for sitting in the back of a bus with the black passengers.”

Norman Jewison directed his first feature film called 40 Pounds of Trouble in 1962. He also directed Steve McQueen in the 1965 movie The Cincinnati Kid. In 1953 Norman Jewison married Margaret Ann Dixon, who was a model. She passed away in 2004 and in 2010, he wed Lynne St David. He is survived by his two sons and a daughter from his first marriage, Kevin, Michael and Jenny Snyder. Norman Jewison is also survived by his five grandchildren.