Lynn Stalmaster

Arguably the most famous casting director in show biz with more than 400 film and TV credits to his name, Lynn Stalmaster has helped to launch the career of many a great star. He was born in Nebraska, the son of a District Court Judge (Irvin Stalmaster, 1897-1952) and Estelle Lapidus (1903-1971). His family relocated to L.A. in 1938 where he was schooled at Beverly Hills High School and first discovered acting on radio. Following military service he studied at UCLA, graduating with a master's degree in theatre arts in 1952. Between 1951 and 1955, he had a minor career as a screen actor but at the same time hedged his bets by joining an independent production company headed by Jack J. Gross and Philip N. Krasne. Stalmaster started out as a producer's assistant and took over the role of casting director upon his predecessor's retirement, over time developing a canny aptitude for 'reading actors' as well as accumulating an inventory of (not necessarily established) theatrical players from the U.S. and Europe. He initially worked on several classic TV shows, including The Lone Wolf (1954), 319 episodes of Gunsmoke (1955) and Have Gun - Will Travel (1957). After going free-lance, he was tasked by the director Robert Wise to find 'new faces' who could be cast as suitable inmates for the Susan Hayward prison dramaI Want to Live! (1958). Offers soon began to flood in from other famous film makers for ensemble casting. Stanley Kramer utilised his services for Inherit the Wind (1960) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (kick-starting the career of William Shatner), William Wyler for The Children's Hour (1961), Billy Wilder for Irma la Douce (1963) and The Fortune Cookie (1966), Norman Jewison for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Stalmaster's bolder choices included travelling across Europe to recruit native German speakers (rather than using familiar English actors) for key roles in The Great Escape (1963) (he found Hannes Messemer, who played prison Kommandant Von Luger, in Zurich). His keen eye for talent resulted in the seminal casting of relatively unknown stage actor Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) and LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte in Roots (1977). He discovered Christopher Reeve on the New York stage and persisted in sustained efforts to have him assigned the lead role of Superman (1978) (saying "I was totally captured, not only by his talent, but by him as a human being"). He furthered the careers of Ned Beatty (Deliverance (1972)) and Jeff Bridges (Halls of Anger (1970)) by prompting their respective movie debuts. Others whose careers 'The Master Caster' helped mentor along the way include Richard Dreyfuss, Jill Clayburgh, John Travolta, Bruce Dern, Jon Voight and James Caan. Stalmaster was the first in his chosen profession to receive a single card main screen credit ('casting by') for The Thomas Crown Affair and also the first casting director to receive an Honorary Academy Award in 2017.