Biographie
Originally from New York, Michael Gruskoff began his career at the William Morris mail room in 1958. By 1963 Michael was an agent at Creative Management Associates (CMA) based in Los Angeles. During the course of eight years he represented such illustrious talent as Peter Sellers, Robert Redford, Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood, Faye Dunaway and Barbara Streisand.
He packaged films for his Director/Producer clients including Al Ruddy's Little Faus and Big Halsey, Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson & They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, John Boorman's Point Blank, Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Dennis Hopper's ground-breaking, Easy Rider and works from his other clients including Marvin Worth (Lenny, Malcolm X), Mary Rydell (The Reivers), Gillo Pontecorvo (Battle of Algiers).
Gruskoff segued into producing with Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie followed by the environmental sci-fi adventure, Silent Running, written by Michael Cimino and Steven Bochco and directed by Douglas Trumbull. In 1974 he produced Mel Brooks' classic Young Frankenstein, that would go on to become one of the highest grossing comedies of the decade and among the most beloved films of all time. While entrenched at Fox he produced Stanley Donen's Lucky Lady, starring Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds and Liza Minelli.
Gruskoff then went to Europe to produce Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu: The Vampyre, is widely recognized as a cult classic. He remained in Europe to make Jean-Jacques Annaud's Academy Award nominated Quest for Fire, that would go on to win the Cesar Award, the French academy award.
He returned to the U.S. and produced the Academy Award nominated My Favorite Year. The film was co-produced by Mel Brooks and garnered Peter O' Toole a Best Actor nomination. Over the next decade Gruskoff produced several films including: Burnin' Love, Clint Eastwood's Pink Cadillac, Article 99, Prelude to a Kiss and Richard Marquand's Until September, and Overnight.
In 1999 Michael oversaw production on several films for Industry Entertainment, including: Spike Lee's 25th Hour, 15 Minutes, Phillip Kaufman's Quills, and James Gray's The Yards .
He later joined Michael Douglas at the American Play Company as both a consultant and board member. During his tenure he established and instructed a class at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts that focused on developing classic stage plays into contemporary screenplays. American Rights Management subsequently developed a number of plays from the program into TV and film projects.
In 2015, Michael Gruskoff served as a mentor for the Academy Spark youth program.
In 2016, Michael Gruskoff and Mel Brooks conceived a book, 'Young Frankenstein:The Story of the Making of the Film'. The foreword was written by Judd Apatow.
