Harry J. Ufland, a veteran agent and manager-turned-producer who collaborated with director Martin Scorsese on “The Last Temptation of Christ” has died. He was 81.
Ufland died of brain cancer at his Playa Vista home.
Ufland also produced Irwin Winkler’s “Night and the City” (1992), starring Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange; Carl Franklin’s “One True Thing” (1998), with Meryl Streep nominated for best actress; “Snow Falling on Cedars” (1999), starring Ethan Hawke; and “Crazy/Beautiful” (2001), featuring Kirsten Dunst.
Ufland was representing Scorsese when he received a note of thanks in the credits for one of the filmmaker’s earliest features, “Mean Streets” (1973), and he appeared on screen as an agent for kidnapped late-night host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) in Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” (1982). He was also thanked by “Deer Hunter” producer Barry Spikings when the movie won an Oscar.
Ufland also served as an executive producer on Jackson’s 18-minute “West Side Story”-influenced “Bad” music video that was helmed by Scorsese in 1986 and on “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988), for which Scorsese earned a best director Oscar nomination.
Born in Manhattan on March 12, 1936, Ufland was raised in the uptown neighborhood of Washington Heights. He worked as an agent at William Morris from 1958-74 and at CMA/ICM from 1974-76 before launching The Ufland Agency in Los Angeles.
His clients also included De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Cher, Joe Pesci, Peter Bogdanovich, Catherine Deneuve, Charles Grodin, Jodie Foster, Martin Brest, Marcello Mastroianni, Ridley and Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne and Jonathan Kaplan.
In 1982, Ufland founded Ufland-Roth Productions with Joe Roth. They produced “Offbeat,” “Moving Violations” and “Streets of Gold” (1986), directed by Roth in 1991, he produced “Not Without My Daughter” (1991), starring Sally Field.
The last film he produced was “The Big Wedding” (2013), starring De Niro and Diane Keaton.
Ufland and his family spent many years as residents of Malibu. Ufland was a professor at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., from 2011 until his death in 2018.
Harry is survived by his wife Mary Jane; his children Tommy, John, Anne, Chris, Jenny and Jossie; his first wife Mary Cossette; and six grandkids.