Born February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, N.Y., (Robert) Jonathan Demme was the son of Robert Demme, a public relations manager and his wife, Dorothy.  The family later moved to Florida, where he was educated, graduating from Southwest Miami High School and the University of Florida.

Demme had an early job as a film critic for a shopping guide in Coral Gables.  Producer Joseph E. Levine, while vacationing in Miami, read Demme’s review of Zulu which impressed him.  As a result, he hired Demme to handle publicity for his Avco Embassy films.  In 1971, he went to work for Roger Corman and soon began his film career as a director of exploitation films for Corman.  Among them were such titles as Caged Heat and Crazy Mama.  His first critically acclaimed film was 1977’s Handle with Care which received an Oscar nomination for Best Film Editing.

1979’s Last Embrace starring Roy Scheider and Janet Margolin earned strong notices, while 1980’s Melvin and Howard was even more successful, earning Demme the Best Director award from the New York Film Critics and the Best Picture award from the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film.  It also earned Mary Steenburgen a slew of awards, including the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.  His successes later in the decade included Swing Shift starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell and Oscar nominated Christine Lahti; Something Wild starring Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith and Ray Liotta and 1988’s Married to the Mob starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine and Oscar nominee Dean Stockwell.  It was, however, 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs that provided Demme with the opportunity of his career.

A major box office sensation, The Silence of the Lambs received seven Oscar nominations and won five including Best Picture, Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Actress (Jodie Foster) and Director (Demme).  Two years later he was back with Philadelphia for which Tom Hanks received the first of his back-to-back Oscars for Best Actor.  It would be another five years before Demme would direct another film, 1998’s Beloved starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.

Alternating between documentaries and feature films, his early 21st century output included 2002’s The Truth About Charlie, a failed remake of 1964’s Charade with Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton substituting for Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, and 2004’s The Manchurian Candidate, a bizarre remake of the 1962 classic, with Denzel Washington, Liv Schreiber, and Meryl Streep substituting for Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey.  2008’s Rachel Getting Married brought him his notices of the decade, earning an Oscar nomination for Anne Hathaway.

Demme’s last theatrical film was 2015’s Ricki and the Flash starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline as former rock stars.

Jonathan Demme was married twice and had three children.  He died of esophageal cancer and complications of disease on April 26, 2017.  He was 73 years old.  Director Ted Demme (1963-2002) was his nephew.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MELVIN AND HOWARD (1980)

Demme’s folksy gem about a gas station attendant (Paul LeMat) who may or may not be Howard Hughes’ heir was an unexpected hit, winning numerous year-end awards including Best Picture from the National Society of Film Critics and Best Director from the New York Film Critics in competition with Robert Redford’s Ordinary People, David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull.  Jason Robards as Hughes received several Best Supporting Actor awards and an Oscar nomination while Mary Steenburgen as LeMat’s kooky first wife cornered the market on the year’s Supporting Actress awards including the Oscar.

MARRIED TO THE MOB (1988)

Demme’s comic gem about a mobster’s widow earned Michelle Pheiffer a Best Actress- Musical or Comedy nomination at the Goden Gobes.  Joan Cusack as Pheiffer’s friend received some awards recognition.  Dean Stockwell and Mercedes Ruehl as the crime boss and his wife earned numerous nominations and awards, but only Stockwell received an Oscar nomination for his performance.  Stockwell’s well-deserved nomination capped a career that began as a child actor in such films as The Valley of Decision and The Green Years and continued in adulthood with such films as Compulsion, Sons and Lovers, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

The biggest critical and box-office success of Demme’s career was this near-horror crime thriller that became only the third film in history to sweep the Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Actress (Jodie Foster) and Screenplay (Ted Tally), following on the heels of 1934’s It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert directed by Frank Capra and 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson and Lousie Fletcher directed by Milos Forman.  Although several sequels and eventually a TV series would follow, this was the only film in the franchise that the eclectic director would be involved in.

PHILADELPHIA (1993)

Although there had been several TV movies and small budget theatrical films about the subject, Demme’s was Hollywood’s first major film dealing with the AIDS crisis.  Tom Hanks, in his first Oscar-winning performance, was the up-and-coming lawyer diagnosed with HIV who sues his firm, led by Jason Robards, for firing him because of the disease.  Denzel Washington is the initially homophobic lawyer he hires to take his case, Antonio Banderas is his supportive partner and Joanne Woodward, in her last on-screen theatrical performance, is his equally supportive mother.  An Oscar also went to Bruce Springsteen for “Streets of Philadelphia” as Best Song.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004)

In the classic original, hero Frank Sinatra tries to stop brainwashed Laurence Harvey from assassinating the president-elect of the U.S. while Harvey instead assassinates the vice-president-elect and his wife, Harvey’s stepfather James Gregory and his evil mother Angela Lansbury.  In this bizarre remake, hero Denzel Washington is also brainwashed and is ordered to assassinate the president-elect but instead assassinates vice president-elect Liev Shreiber and his evil mother Meryl Streep.  Washington and Schreiber are fine, but Streep proves once and for all that she is not Lansbury despite a few odd awards nominations.  Thankfully Oscar didn’t take the bait.

JONATHAN DEMME AND OSCAR

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – Oscar – Best Director