Ray Price, Independent Film Innovator Behind the Scenes, Dies at 75

Ray Price, the respected indie film innovator who served as president of American Zoetrope and First Look Pictures and as a marketing and distribution executive for companies including Landmark Theatres and Trimark Pictures, has died. He was 75.

Price died Sunday at Whittier Hospital Medical Center from heart failure after a long battle with cancer, his longtime partner, Meg Madison, said.

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Throughout his career, Price displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of film, mentored generations of executives and leaned toward the outrageous in the ways he lured audiences to sample challenging movies.

Along the way, he championed filmmakers including Carl Franklin (1992’s One False Move), Allison Anders (1992’s Gas Food Lodging), Tran Anh Hung (1993’s The Scent of Green Papaya), Gurinder Chadha (1993’s Bhaji on the Beach) and John Sayles (1994’s The Secret of Roan Inish).

“Ray, while being a defiantly singular individual, was also emblematic of a bygone age of independent film,” Magnolia Pictures co-CEO Eamonn Bowles said in a statement. “From theater chain owner to distributor, exquisite marketer and production exec, he always sought out novel ways of approaching things. He truly was a rebel.”

Price started his film career in 1972 when he managed the storefront theater The Rialto in Berkeley, California, and he went on to build with Allen Michaan the 33-house Bay Area chain Renaissance Theaters, later sold to the Landmark Theatres circuit.

Under Price’s stewardship, Renaissance redesigned marketing materials like posters and press books that distributors often adopted when the films hadn’t found success in other markets. “He pulled [the 1984 Alex Cox-directed] Repo Man from the slush pile, designed a poster with his own money and put it in his theater,” said his onetime assistant Marti Mattox. “The rest is history.”

As most top art house distributors focused on established auteurs from Europe and Asia, Renaissance programmed such new American directors as Martin Scorsese and John Cassavetes. It also relaunched films like Ridley Scott’s The Duellists (1977), Lewis John Carlino’s The Great Santini (1979), Jonathan Demme’s Melvin and Howard (1980), Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) and Christopher Guest’s The Big Picture (1989).

In 1988, Price relocated to Los Angeles, where he helped start distribution companies including IRS Media and First Look and built the theatrical arm for the home video company Trimark.

During this period, he handled distribution and marketing for Gas Food Lodging, One False Move, The Secret of Roan Inish and The Scent of Green Papaya, plus Bobcat Goldthwait’s Shakes the Clown (1991), Stacy Cochran’s My New Gun (1992), Mira Nair’s Kama Sutra (1996), Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou (1997), Wayne Wang’s Chinese Box (1997), Vincenzo Natali’s Cube (1997) and more.

When most specialty distributors passed on Inish because they didn’t know how to market the fairy tale to kids without involving a Happy Meal, Price at First Look lured adults via “Irish Magical Realism,” producer Maggie Renzi noted. “Ray figured out how to sell it as an art movie to adults,” she said. “Everyone came back with the kids. The poster was complex, sophisticated and gorgeous. It was timeless. He respected art. He was a delight to work with.”

“Ray was the best tactician I’ve ever known,” said Bert Manzari, who formed an independent booking company in San Francisco with Price called ManRay Booking long before running the Landmark chain. “Ray not only taught me about tactics, he also introduced me to cognac, Armagnac and other delightfully decadent pursuits. We had a hell of a good time. Ray had the best film sense, and his persuasive powers were unmatched.”

With Price’s help, Green Papaya received an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. “Today, with experience, I know for sure that Ray brought success to [the feature] in North America,” Tran said.

Price distributed many films from women and people of color, and he was always in search of something fresh and unexpected. One friend asked him why he was wasting his time on such an obscure title as Bhaji on the Beach. The answer came a few years later when Chadha wrote and directed Bend It Like Beckham (2002).

Price was the first to stream a new feature. After First Look acquired Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s Party Girl (1995), starring Parker Posey, he arranged to stream it on the internet in black and white at 14 frames per second via a T1 cable in June 1995.

After 1999, when he joined Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope, Price supervised the worldwide sales and marketing of such films as Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999), which debuted at Cannes, and productions of the first Jeepers Creepers entries.

In 2001, he rejoined Manzari in helping to revive struggling Landmark and published the chain’s free FLM indie film magazine, featuring first-person articles by directors, in order to create awareness for product on the marquee.

Price returned to the internet in 2007 with two Wang films that the director wanted to distribute theatrically in tandem. He thought A Thousand Years of Good Prayers qualified as art house fare but its companion piece, The Princess of Nebraska, wouldn’t work on the big screen. So he convinced Wang to give Princess away for free.

The New York Times, IndieWire and Variety agreed to put the film on the front page of their websites, where it achieved 250,000 hits on opening weekend and helped promote A Thousand Years.

Also in 2007, Price joined 2929 Entertainment as senior vp marketing and distribution, handling such films as Turistas (2006).

“He had a deep knowledge and love of movies and was the source of great lore about the theatrical distribution business,” Roadside Attractions co-president Howard Cohen said. “He was part of what I might call a vanishing breed of indie film executive, along with the late Bingham Ray, who came at the business from a unique combination of cineaste love and down-to-earth and on-the-ground movie theater perspective, often starting out managing local theaters.”

At the time of his death, Price was promoting Rodrigo Reyes’ documentary Sansón and Me, about a 19-year-old illegal immigrant who is sentenced to death. The film will be simulcast in prisons through a grant from the Ford Foundation, there are plans for a theatrical release, and PBS is set to air it this fall.

In addition to Madison, survivors include her sisters, Liz and Sean; his children, Antigone, Dierdre and Asher; and his brother, Brian. Donations can be made to give.translifeline.org.

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