Ely Landau; Brought Stage Plays to Film and TV

Ely Landau, whose innovative television and film production and distribution operations brought quality stage plays to a wide audience, has died. He was 73.

Landau died Friday in Los Angeles of complications after a stroke, publicist Martin Roberts said Saturday.

The producer became interested in a wider market for intellectual productions in 1953 when he organized National Telefilm Associates. The company was one of the industry’s largest independent television film distribution firms and also owned television stations in New York City and Minneapolis. Landau began the landmark “The Play of the Week” series on New York’s WNTA-TV, including such productions as “Medea,” “Tiger at the Gate,” “The World of Sholem Aleichem” and “The Power and the Glory.”

In 1961, Landau introduced his first independent film productions, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” starring Katharine Hepburn, and “The Pawnbroker” starring Rod Steiger. Both stars earned Academy Award nominations.

Landau followed those productions with “The Madwoman of Chaillot” with Hepburn, Yul Brynner, Danny Kaye and Richard Chamberlain, and two documentaries, “A Face of War” about Vietnam, and “King, a Filmed Record--Montgomery to Memphis.” The film about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. played in 663 theaters as a one-night benefit for King’s charities.

With his American Film Theater subscription service, launched in 1973, Landau brought outstanding stage plays to the motion picture screen--and to a greater segment of the public.

Although skeptics said he would go broke, the industrious Landau turned eight modern plays into ambitious motion pictures in a mere 10 months.

Landau is survived by his wife and production partner, Edie; daughters, Kathy and Tina; sons, Jon, Les and Neil; three sisters and five grandchildren.

The family has requested that any memorial donations be made to the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.