Early life and education

Bart was born in New York City, the son of Clara and M.S. Bart.

Bart was educated at Friends Seminary in New York City; Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and The London School of Economics and Political Science in London, United Kingdom.

Career

He served as a reporter and columnist for The New York Times and as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Sun-Times prior to entering the film business.

Starting in 1967, Bart worked as an executive at Paramount Pictures, rising to vice president in charge of production; his relationship with Robert Evans was documented in Evans' autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture. He played a key role in such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968), True Grit (1969), Harold and Maude (1971), The Godfather (1972) and Paper Moon (1973). After eight years at Paramount he become senior vice president for production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and president of Lorimar Productions, where he was involved in such films as Being There (1979) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). Bart also served as a co-producer on such films as Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) and Islands in the Stream (1977). He also wrote the screenplay for the 1971 film Making It .

He joined Variety as editor-in-chief in 1989. In 2007, Bart appointed Tim Gray to become his successor as editor with the understanding that he would stay on as columnist, blogger and consultant. In April 2009, it was announced that Bart was moving to the position of "vice president and editorial director", characterized online as "Boffo No More: Bart Up and Out at Variety".

He served as executive producer and screenwriter of the documentary film, Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters (2006) shown on the HBO television channel.

Through the years Bart has published eight books, including five non-fiction and three fiction.

Personal life

Bart is married to the former Phyllis Fredette. He has two daughters, Dilys Bart Shelton and Colby Bart Centrella.

His nephew is actor Roger Bart.

Bibliography

(This list may be incomplete.)

• Destinies, a novel co-written with Denne Bart Petitclerc (Simon & Schuster, 1979)
• Thy Kingdom Come, a novel (Linden, 1981)
• Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM, nonfiction (Morrow, 1990). Refers to the final days of MGM as a historic film studio in Culver City, California. (MGM still exists as a company.)
• The Gross: the Hits, the Flops — the Summer that Ate Hollywood, nonfiction (St. Martin's Press, 1999) (paperback: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000 - ISBN 978-0-312-25391-2 )
• Who Killed Hollywood? and Put the Tarnish on Tinseltown, nonfiction (Renaissance, 2000)
• Shoot Out: Surviving the Fame and (Mis)fortune of Hollywood, nonfiction coauthored with Peter Guber (Putnam, 2002)
• Dangerous Company: Dark Tales from Tinseltown, a collection of short stories (Miramax, 2003)
• Boffo! Hollywood in the Trenches: How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb, nonfiction (Miramax, 2006)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]