Robert B. Radnitz

Robert Bonoff Radnitz (August 9, 1924 – June 6, 2010) was an American film producer best known for his production of the family films Sounder and Where the Lilies Bloom. He produced several movies, many of which were adapted from children's literature.

Early life An only child, Radnitz was born on August 9, 1924, in Great Neck, New York. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in drama and English and spent a year on the university's faculty teaching English after graduating.

His start in the entertainment field was as an apprentice to theater director Harold Clurman. Radnitz went off on his own in the 1950s, producing the Broadway theatre productions of The Frogs of Spring and The Young and the Beautiful.

Film production Radnitz moved to Hollywood, starting work for 20th Century Fox as a script consultant. In the 1960s, Radnitz produced several films with director James B. Clark. One of his first productions was the 1960 film A Dog of Flanders about a Belgian farm boy who aspires to be an artist. The film helped develop Radnitz's reputation as "a maker of high-quality movies for children and their parents", according to critic Valerie J. Nelson of the Los Angeles Times.

His 1961 film Misty tells the story of a family and their efforts to raise a filly born to a wild horse. Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1964 was based on the true story of a Native American girl left alone for 18 years on an island. Time described the film as "the very model of what children's pictures ought to be" in a film that "provided sentiment without sentimentality and a moral without a lecture". My Side of the Mountain was a 1969 film about a boy who decides to leave the big city to spend a sabbatical in the woods to see if he can make it on his own. An early retrospective of Radnitz' works at the Museum of Modern Art in 1969 credited his ability to produce family fare that had more "compassion and sophistication than many so-called adult films".

In the 1970s and 1980s, Radnitz collaborated on several projects with director Martin Ritt. His 1972 film Sounder, based on the 1970 Newbery Medal-winning novel of the same name by William H. Armstrong, was his best known work. Radnitz had been advised not to turn Sounder into a movie because of the perception that theatergoers would not want to see the film. It told the story of an African-American boy living with his sharecropper family in Depression-era Louisiana who longs for an education after his father is sent to prison for stealing food. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Film critic Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the movie "beautifully acted, honest, angering and inspiring" and named it as one of his ten best films of that year.

The 1974 film Where the Lilies Bloom, about a teenager struggling to keep her orphaned family together, also received generally positive reviews. Reviewer Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote that "this beautiful little movie is like a cool, clear dip of mountain spring water" and was made "without one false, hayseed note or drop of sugar". Radnitz' 1983 film Cross Creek, adapted from the memoir of the same title by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, tells her story of how she started writing while living in central Florida. The picture, which starred Mary Steenburgen, earned four Academy Award nominations.

Radnitz died at age 85 on June 6, 2010, of complications from a stroke at his home in Malibu, California. He was survived by his wife, the former Pearl Turner.

Filmography He was producer for all films unless otherwise noted.

Film Year Film Credit Notes 1959 A Dog of Flanders 1960 None but the Brave 1961 Misty 1964 Island of the Blue Dolphins 1966 ...And Now Miguel 1969 My Side of the Mountain 1972 The Little Ark Sounder 1974 Where the Lilies Bloom 1976 Birch Interval Part 2, Sounder Executive producer 1977 A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich 1983 Cross Creek Final film as a producer

As writer

Year Film Notes 1958 Wink of an Eye Uncredited

Television Year Title Notes 1977 Mary White Television film 1991 Never Forget