JERRY ZUCKER (Director/Producer) directed the hit film "Ghost," the fourth-highest grossing film in worldwide box-office history, having earned more than half a billion dollars in theaters around the globe. He reunites on "First Knight" with Hunt Lowry, with whom he produced Columbia Pictures' "My Life," the moving drama starring Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman. He recently produced "A Walk in the Clouds," starring Keanu Reeves, for 20th Century Fox.
"Ghost" was Zucker's first dramatic film and his first solo directorial stint after his team efforts as a member of ZAZ (David Zucker/Jim Abrahams/Jerry Zucker). This successful team first collaborated on the Paramount hit "Airplane!," and wrote and produced "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!," starring Leslie Nielsen; directed "Ruthless People," created the acclaimed television series "Police Squad!" and wrote the screenplay for the independent hit comedy "Kentucky Fried Movie."
HUNT LOWRY (Producer) most recently produced, with Jerry Zucker, Columbia Pictures' "My Life," the moving drama starring Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman. Lowry also produced, with Arnon Milchan and Tony Thomopoulos, Columbia Pictures' "Striking Distance," starring Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker, and with Michael Mann, the hit film "The Last of the Mohicans," starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe.
Lowry's other production credits include John Hughes' "Only the Lonely," directed by Chris Columbus, the romantic drama "Revenge," Hughes's "Career Opportunities," "Get Crazy," and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy, "Top Secret!" Lowry had earlier served as associate producer of the hit comedy "Airplane!," also from the ZAZ comedy team.
Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Lowry initially entered the film business by working on his brother's AFI project. He next became associated with director Ron Howard on the latter's feature film directorial debut, Roger Corman's "Grand Theft Auto," produced by Jon Davison, which led to Lowry's stint as producer for Corman's sci-fi thriller "Humanoids From the Deep."
Lowry's extensive television producing credits include HBO's "Baja Oklahoma" (executive producer) and "Rascals" and "Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn" for CBS, the CBS mini-series "Dream West" and the telefilms "His Mistress," "Wild Horses" and "Surviving."
GIL NETTER (Executive Producer) has been president of Zucker Brothers Productions for seven years. He produced "A Walk in the Clouds" and executive produced "My Life," "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult," and "Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" with Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams.
After beginning his career as a television/literary agent for The Agency for the Performing Arts, Netter became vice president of Chuck Fries Productions and later vice president of Imagine Entertainment before joining forces with David and Jerry Zucker.
Netter was born in Bronxville, New York, and was reared there and in Beverly Hills.
ERIC RATTRAY (executive producer) first worked with Jerry Zucker when he was the executive in charge of production on Zucker's comedy "Top Secret!"
In his long career in production, he has served in every capacity from assistant director to production executive to producer, and has worked with such notable directors as Fred Zinneman, Hal Wallis, Mel Frank, David Lean and Stanley Kubrick. He has been involved in the production of such films as Sam Spiegel's "Nicholas and Alexandra," as well as "Betrayal" and the Stanley Donen films "The Little Prince" and "Saturn Three." Rattray worked with Billy Wilder and Izzy Diamond on "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes," and George Cuckor and Katherine Hepburn on "The Corn is Green."
He counts among his credits as producer such films as "Memphis Belle," as well as "Labyrinth" and "Dragonslayer."
JANET ZUCKER (executive producer) started and ran her own business as a personal manager for eight years, representing actors, writers and directors. Among the talent she managed over the years were such well-known actors as David Caruso and Judge Reinhold. After the birth of her first child, Zucker decided to stop working full time to raise her children, but continued to develop and select materials for her husband Jerry. This lead to executive producing "First Knight."
Zucker feels very strongly about the health and welfare of children and hopes to make a difference by serving on the boards of the Children's Bureau of Southern California and the Venice Family Clinic, which she has done for 2 years and continues to do.
The screenplay is by WILLIAM NICHOLSON, who was recently nominated for an Academy Award for the feature film "Shadowlands," which told the story of Oxford academic and author C.S. Lewis and his romance with American Joy Davidman. His other screenplays include "Sarafina!," starring Whoopi Goldberg, and "Nell," which featured an Academy Award-nominated performance by Jodie Foster.
Nicholson originally wrote the "Shadowlands" script for a 1985 television drama for the BBC which starred Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. The success of the television version led to the writer adapting "Shadowlands" for the stage, which ran for a year in the West End of London, and was also produced on Broadway and continues to tour around the world.
Born in 1948 and educated at Cambridge University, Nicholson joined the BBC as a graduate trainee. As writer-producer-director, Nicholson has made over 40 documentaries. As executive producer, he has been responsible for the English TV projects "Everyman," "Global Report" and "Lovelaw." He has written the television films "Martin Luther," "New World," "Life Story," "The Vision," "Sweet as You Are," and "The March." For the stage, he has written "Map of the Heart."
Veteran production designer JOHN BOX has brought his considerable artistry to the creation of the legendary, romantic world of "First Knight." Box received Academy Awards for his work on "Lawrence of Arabia," "Dr. Zhivago," "Oliver!" and "Nicholas and Alexandra," and earned Academy Award nominations for "Travels With My Aunt" and "A Passage to India," in addition earning four British Academy Awards and nominations too numerous to mention. He also received a Special Award from the Moscow Film Festival for his work on "Oliver!"
Trained as an architect, Box switched to production design in 1951. His first job was with Denham Studios where he worked on such films as "The Browning Version," "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "The Million Pound Note." By the mid-'50s, he was designing films like "A Prize of Gold," "Fire Down Below," "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness," "Our Man in Havana" and "The World of Suzie Wong."
The invitation to design "Lawrence of Arabia" for David Lean began an association that would last the rest of Lean's life and encompass some of the finest films ever made. In addition to the Oscar-winning "Lawrence of Arabia," "Dr. Zhivago," and Oscar-nominated "A Passage to India," Box spent five years preparing "Nostromo" until the director's death in 1991.
Box's incredible list of credits include "A Man for All Seasons," "Oliver!," "Nicholas and Alexandra," "Travels With My Aunt," "The Great Gatsby" and "Rollerball."
Director of photography ADAM GREENBERG, A.S.C., has lensed some of the most successful films of all time, including "The Terminator," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "Ghost," with "First Knight" director Jerry Zucker.
The Polish native who grew up in Israel has established himself as one of the top cinematographers with numerous additional credits, including "Three Men and a Baby," "La Bamba," "Near Dark," "Turner & Hooch," the Ivan Reitman comedy "Junior," "Dave," starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, "Sister Act" and "Toys."
Editor WALTER MURCH, who won an Academy Award for the soundtrack of "Apocalypse Now," was also nominated for his film editing work on "Julia," "The Godfather Part III," and "Ghost," for "First Knight" director Jerry Zucker.
Murch began his long association with Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope company when the now legendary filmmaker George Lucas recruited him to mix Coppola's "The Rain People." Murch then co-wrote the script and mixed Lucas's science fiction adventure "THX-1138." He remained with American Zoetrope for ten years, working both as an editor and sound mixer on such projects as "The Conversation," "Apocalypse Now," the "Godfather" movies, and "American Graffiti."
Murch then made his directorial debut with "Return to Oz," which he also co-wrote and edited.
Special Effects Supervisor GEORGE GIBBS, who created the death-defying Gauntlet for "First Knight," won his first Academy Award for his spectacular work on "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." He earned his second Oscar for his work on the breakthrough film, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Both features also earned him British Academy Awards, which he also received for his work on Terry Gilliam's critically-acclaimed fantasy "Brazil."
London native Gibbs started his career as an apprentice electrician with the Strand Electric Company, specializing in theatrical lighting, then joined Pinewood Studios to work on traveling matte and other effects in the '50s.
In 1964, Gibbs joined Gerry Anderson's watershed SFX/Puppet series, "Thunderbirds," and trained with masters of the effects craft: Les Bowie, Walley Veevers and Derek Meddings.
He cut his teeth on such big effects pictures as "The Battle of Britain" and "Captain Nemo and the Underwater City," which marked his first job as effects supervisor. His work since then has encompassed an amazing array of films, including "Warlords of Atlantis," "Superman," "Flash Gordon," "Conan the Barbarian," "The Curse of the Pink Panther," "The Meaning of Life," "Brazil," "Labyrinth," "Alien 3," "A Fish Called Wanda," "Patriot Games," and the second and third "Indiana Jones" blockbusters, among numerous others.
JERRY GOLDSMITH (Composer) is one of Hollywood's best-known and most prolific composers. Since his first screen credit, "Black Patch" in 1957, he has scored over 150 films. An Academy Award-winner for "The Omen" (1976), he has also received fourteen Academy Award nominations.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, he began his career in radio at CBS's Los Angeles studios in 1950. In 1955, he graduated to television, scoring "Climax," the first live dramatic program to originate from CBS in L.A.
Goldsmith's first score for a major film was "Lonely Are the Brave" in 1963. Just a few of his best-known scores since that time are "A Patch of Blue," "The Sand Pebbles," "Planet of the Apes," "Papillon," "The Boys from Brazil," "Alien," "Poltergeist," "Gremlins," "Total Recall," "The Russia House," "Basic Instinct," Six Degrees of Separation," and, most recently, "The River Wild" and "I.Q."
He has also composed for Paramount's popular series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1989-1990) and "Star Trek: Voyager" (1994-1995).
Costume designer NANA CECCHI created the designs for Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer in the film "Ladyhawke," as well as the costumes for many Italian Theater productions.
Working closely with production designer John Box and director Jerry Zucker, Cecchi brought Camelot to life with the invention of features and colors and with a distinguished array of natural fabrics, velvets and cottons.
Born in Rome and schooled in the Humanities at Rome University, Cecchi trained throughout Italy with a variety of costume companies in costume and set design. She began her career as a freelance designer in 1978.
Among Cecchi's opera credits (both sets and costumes) are Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas," Brecht-Weill's "The Threepenny Opera," Mussorgski's "The Marriage," and Verdi's Simone "Boccanegra." Among theater credits, she most recently designed Moliere's "School of Women." Her solo credits as costume designer in opera include Puccini's "Turandot" and "La Boheme," Verdi's "Il Trovatore" and Rigoletto and Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte."
Her film work includes a number of Italian productions, such as "Stradivarius," "Benvenuto Cellini," "Maccheroni," "The Gold Rimmed Glasses," in which she has worked with such internationally known actors as Anthony Quinn, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Marcello Mastroianni, Jack Lemmon and Philippe Noiret.
In addition to "Ladyhawke," Cecchi designed costumes for director Franklin Schaffner's "Lionheart: The Children's Crusade," with Eric Stoltz and Gabriel Byrne.
She has received the following awards for her work: Davide di Donatello for "Hearts in Armour," Premio Abbiati for Turandot, Saturn Award for "Ladyhawke" and the Venice Film Festival's Premio Osella for "The Gold Rimmed Glasses."
An Olympic athlete and trainer of the British and Canadian Olympic sabre teams in several Olympics, swordmaster BOB ANDERSON trained Richard Gere and Ben Cross on the ways of the sword for the extensive sword-play for "First Knight."
A legend in his field, Anderson worked with Erroll Flynn on "Master of Ballantrae." He was also the swordmaster on the "Star Wars" movies, as well as "Highlander," "The Princess Bride" and "The Three Musketeers."
Armourer TERRY ENGLISH and his team constructed the background fighting suits of armor for 270 knights, in addition to the fighting suits for Lancelot, and Malagant's glamorous copper armor.
Having supplied armor to films for over twenty years, English began his career with the Monty Pythonesque "Jabberwocky." He has designed the suits for "Excalibur," "The Lion in Winter," "Mary Queen of Scots," "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Alien," among other notable projects. He has also worked on many commercials and has made suits of armor in steel, brass, aluminum, as well as swords, weapons, crowns and regalia, belts and buckles.
At his home in Cornwall, England, he also runs a Medieval-themed restaurant.
