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Anna Gross, the director behind such acclaimed titles as Tootsie and The never-ending story, died on July 23 at her home in Twentynine Palms, Calif., following a long battle with cancer. She was 68 years old.
Gross was born in New York on October 25, 1952. She spent the first eight years of her career alongside famous Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. In her time with the Oscar winner, she worked in various titles on 14 films, including Charles Bronson starrer Death wish (1974), by Sydney Pollack The three days of the condor (1975), Western The shooter (1976), King Kong (1976), with Jeff Bridges and Charles Grodin, and Milos Forman Ragtime.
Gross went on to serve as vice president of production for Pollack, working on his 1979 film. The electric rider and by developing two others: the years 1982 Tootsie and 1985 Outside of Africa.
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Gross spent much of the 1980s working in Germany alongside producer Bernd Eichinger, overseeing the production of a classic fantasy photo. The never-ending story (1984), Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The name of the rose (1986) and Last outing for Brooklyn (1989), on which she was also an associate producer. She then traveled to Los Angeles to help set up Constantine Film’s operations in the city.
In the early 1990s, Gross served as vice president of production for Italian producer and distributor Vittorio Cecchi Gori. She was the key executive of the 1991 Oscar Mediterranean, Giuseppe Tornatore The star maker, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1996, and Michael Radford’s film The postman. The latter film won the Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Music in 1996, also scoring nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Gross handled the sale and delivery to the United States of all of these films, serving as a point of contact for Miramax in their distribution and Academy Awards campaigns. She also worked during this period on Robert De Niro’s first film in 1993 A tale from the Bronx and Oscar winner in 1999 Life is Beautiful.
Later in his career, Gross started his own business, overseeing Oscar campaigns for foreign films. During this period, she directed 11 nominated films, including two by Eichinger—Fall (2004) and The Baader Meinhof complex (2008).
Gross was an alumnus of Columbia University’s graduate film program. She was also a founding member of the board of directors of the non-profit organization FilmAid International and was the director and general secretary of Hypomania Content, Inc.
Gross is survived by two nieces and three nephews, as well as many other family members, friends and colleagues. Plans for a memorial have yet to be revealed.
In lieu of flowers, please donate to itgetsbetter.org or nextstepfitness.org
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