Awful news.
My sincere condolences to Michael's friends and family, especially our own Larry Blamire, who had a longtime working relationship and friendship with Mike.
Michael posted on the CHFB under the username Precode, so he was indeed one of us.
From Mark Evanier's blog today:
My pal Mike Schlesinger died this morning…and movies have lost one of the best friends they ever had. I'm not sure I ever met anyone who loved them more…or knew more about them…or got so angry when they were mistreated.
When I first met this boy from Dayton, Ohio, he was an executive at Sony and was very much responsible for liberating many films from their vaults, restoring them, getting them released for home video or to revival cinemas, etc. We bonded over our shared love for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World — and with Paul Scrabo, did the commentary track for its Criterion release. We agreed on that film but debated — always friendly — when our tastes differed. Mike actually was heard on a lot of home video commentary tracks and I was honored that he asked me to join him on several.
He was a fixture at a wide number of film festivals, screenings, lectures, interviews of stars and filmmakers (often, he was the interviewer) and he also made movies. After he left Sony, he wrote, directed and produced the Biffle & Shooster shorts and had recently made his first feature length comedy — Rock and Doris (try to) Write a Movie. It was a semi-remake of George M. Cohan's play Seven Keys to Baldpate, updated all the way to the sixties, starring Marilu Henner and Joe Regalbuto. It is, so far, unreleased.
The last few times I talked to Mike, as he complained about various medical problems he was having, his biggest concern seemed to be that not feeling well was getting in the way of him hooking up with a distributor.
Then the medical problems got worse, he was hospitalized…and this morning, cancer took him at the age of 74. His friends (and he had many) owe a special thanks to his friend Catherine Dickerson who took so much loving care of him, especially in his last weeks. I am so very sad to lose a good friend like Mike…and like I said, movies never had a better one.
https://www.newsfromme.com/2025/01/09/m ... ger-r-i-p/
My sincere condolences to Michael's friends and family, especially our own Larry Blamire, who had a longtime working relationship and friendship with Mike.
Michael posted on the CHFB under the username Precode, so he was indeed one of us.
From Mark Evanier's blog today:
My pal Mike Schlesinger died this morning…and movies have lost one of the best friends they ever had. I'm not sure I ever met anyone who loved them more…or knew more about them…or got so angry when they were mistreated.
When I first met this boy from Dayton, Ohio, he was an executive at Sony and was very much responsible for liberating many films from their vaults, restoring them, getting them released for home video or to revival cinemas, etc. We bonded over our shared love for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World — and with Paul Scrabo, did the commentary track for its Criterion release. We agreed on that film but debated — always friendly — when our tastes differed. Mike actually was heard on a lot of home video commentary tracks and I was honored that he asked me to join him on several.
He was a fixture at a wide number of film festivals, screenings, lectures, interviews of stars and filmmakers (often, he was the interviewer) and he also made movies. After he left Sony, he wrote, directed and produced the Biffle & Shooster shorts and had recently made his first feature length comedy — Rock and Doris (try to) Write a Movie. It was a semi-remake of George M. Cohan's play Seven Keys to Baldpate, updated all the way to the sixties, starring Marilu Henner and Joe Regalbuto. It is, so far, unreleased.
The last few times I talked to Mike, as he complained about various medical problems he was having, his biggest concern seemed to be that not feeling well was getting in the way of him hooking up with a distributor.
Then the medical problems got worse, he was hospitalized…and this morning, cancer took him at the age of 74. His friends (and he had many) owe a special thanks to his friend Catherine Dickerson who took so much loving care of him, especially in his last weeks. I am so very sad to lose a good friend like Mike…and like I said, movies never had a better one.
https://www.newsfromme.com/2025/01/09/m ... ger-r-i-p/
statistics: Posted by Rakshasa — 10:35 PM - Today — Replies 8 — Views 126