Norman Jewison, the director of hit classics such as ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ has passed away. He was 97.
Jewison died on Saturday in his home. But his family does not want to specify exactly where Jewison’s publicist, Jeff Sanderson, announced.
Jewison Reveals Key Moment That ‘Stuck’ With Him
Jewison was known for his genius in directing racial dramas. So the content of his production often went against the grain of what was acceptable in Hollywood. So Jewison decided to break the most. In a 2011 interview with NPR, the famed actor talked about an interaction on a bus in his younger years that inspired much of the content behind his films.
“The bus driver looked at me,” he said. “He said, ‘Can’t you read the sign?’ And there was a little sign, made of tin, swinging off a wire in the center of the bus. It said, ‘Colored people to the rear.’
So I turned around and I saw two or three Black citizens sitting around me, and … a few white people sitting way at the top of the bus. And I didn’t know what to do. I was just embarrassed. So I just got off the bus and he left me there. I was left standing in this hot sun and thinking about what I had just been through. This was my first experience with racial prejudice. And it really stuck with me.”
‘In the Heat of the Night’ Scheduled to Get Reboot
“In the Heat of the Night,” is one of those films that is indeed a classic. References from the film still get used in film today. Like many classic films, Jewison’s blockbuster is scheduled to get a reboot, according to Deadline.
“In The Heat Of The Night, a present-day drama series based on the Oscar-winning 1967 United Artists feature, is back in development with a new writer. Joe Robert Cole, writer-producer on FX’s People v. O.J. Simpson, is writing the new series adaptation, which is being developed internally at MGM Television,” Deadline wrote.
MGM TV previously had set up an In the Heat of the Night TV series — described as an exploration of character and race set in modern-day Mississippi – at Showtime in 2014 with The Help filmmaker Tate Taylor writing and directing.”