Ivan Reitman, Filmmaker Behind 'Animal House' And 'Ghostbusters,' Dies At 75

Ivan Reitman, the filmmaker who defined a generation’s sense of comedy, passed away on Sunday at the age of 75 at his home in Montecito, California.

Double Secret Probation: Reitman was born Komárno, Czechoslovakia, on Oct. 27, 1946. His father was an underground resistance fighter in World War II and owned a vinegar factory, while his mother survived the Auschwitz concentration camp. When their country came under Communist control, the Reitmans escaped into Austria and were later able to settle in Canada.

Reitman began directing and producing short films while he was a student at McMaster University. He directed his first feature film in 1971 with “Foxy Lady,” a low-budget comedy that introduced audiences to Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin. He teamed again with the future "SCTV" stars in another cheaply-made film, the 1973 “Cannibal Girls.”

Reitman’s big break came as co-producer of the 1978 “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” He initially wanted to direct, but was passed over in favor of John Landis. The film was made on a relatively modest $3 million budget with a then-mostly unknown cast including the film's headliner, “Saturday Night Live” star John Belushi, who had never made a film before being cast as Bluto. Donald Sutherland was a last-minute addition when Universal Pictures insisted on having a recognizable star in the cast.

With its mix of old-school slapstick and late-70s gross-out humor, “National Lampoon’s Animal House” became a mega-hit and secured Reitman’s status within Hollywood. Teaming with another “Saturday Night Live” star, Bill Murray, Reitman directed three back-to-back hits with “Meatballs” (1979), “Stripes” (1981) and “Ghostbusters” (1984).

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Who Ya Gonna Call?: Reitman continued to turn out hit films as director in the late 1980s and early 1990s including “Ghostbusters II” (1989) and helped transition Arnold Schwarzenegger from an action hero to a comedy actor with “Kindergarten Cop” (1990) and “Junior” (1994).

Reitman also continued to produce films, offering an eclectic output that featured the animated cult classic “Heavy Metal” (1981), the Michael Jordan-Bugs Bunny animated hybrid “Space Jam” (1996) and the satirical “Up in the Air” (2009), which was directed by his son Jason Reitman and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. His last films as a producer were “A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting” (2000), which premiered on Netflix Inc NFLX, and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021) from Sony Group Corp SONY.

“We take comfort that his work as a filmmaker brought laughter and happiness to countless others around the world,” said Reitman’s family in a statement. “While we mourn privately, we hope those who knew him through his films will remember him always.”

Photo: GabboT / Wikimedia Commons