posted 03-21-2007 06:01 PM                    

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Saul Swimmer, director of 'Concert for Bangladesh,' dead at 70

Associated Press
Posted March 20 2007, 1:04 PM EDT


MIAMI -- Saul Swimmer, who directed the 1971 concert film organized by Beatles star George Harrison and sitar player Ravi Shankar to raise millions of dollars for refugees in Bangladesh, has died. He was 70.

Swimmer died March 3 of heart failure in Miami and had also had trouble with his kidneys, his sister Esther Itzkovitz said.

"The Concert for Bangladesh," held in New York's Madison Square Garden, was one of his proudest achievements, his business partner and friend Mario Custodio said.

It featured Harrison and Ringo Starr a year after the Beatles broke up. Shankar, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan also played in one of the first major rock concert benefits. The movie raised money for UNICEF relief efforts for millions of refugees of floods, famine and civil war in Bangladesh.

Swimmer was born in Uniontown, Pa. He began directing movies in his 20s, earning some fame for the 30-minute film, "The Boy Who Owned a Melephant."

He also worked on films and television shows including "Around the World of Mike Todd" (1968) with Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles; "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" (1968) and the rock documentary, "Queen: We Will Rock You" (1982). His last project was "Bob Marley & Friends" (2005).

Besides his sister, Swimmer is survived by two brothers.

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Posted on Mon, Mar. 19, 2007

Saul Swimmer, 70: Television, rockumentary, movie director

BY DAVID SMILEY

Coral Gables resident Saul Swimmer, director of three famous rock-'n'-roll documentaries, Let It Be, The Concert for Bangladesh and Queen: We Will Rock You, died March 7 at Mount Sinai Medical Center of heart failure. He was 70.
Swimmer was born April 25, 1936 in Uniontown, Pa. His show business career began with impromptu carnivals and shows in his backyard, where entrance cost was one bottle cap, and culminated in world tours for his music documentaries.

Swimmer earned a bachelor's degree from Carnegie Mellon University and began directing movies in his 20s.

"He was really consumed by the business," Esther Itzkovitz, Swimmer's sister, said. "He knew everything about the movie business and entertainment world."

Swimmer's first film, The Boy Who Owned a Melephant, was a short children's film narrated by actress Tallulah Bankhead.

The piece won a Gold Leaf award at the Venice Film Festival in the late 1960s.

Swimmer worked on over a dozen films and television shows, including: the Beatles documentary Let It Be (1970), the group's swan song that closes with the famous shot of the Beatles performing on a rooftop.

Other credits included: Around the World of Mike Todd (1968) with Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles and Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (1968), a musical comedy starring the Herman's Hermits, the British group that had a hit song by the same name.

NYC PERFORMANCE

In 1972, Swimmer directed The Concert for Bangladesh, a performance at New York's Madison Square Garden organized by the late Beatle George Harrison and world-renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar.

The performance, the first large-scale major benefit concert, featured many famous musicians in the name of a massive flood of Pakistani refugees moving into India and raised millions for the UNICEF Children's Relief Fund.

"I think he was most proud of The Concert for Bangladesh because George Harrison picked him to do that picture and there was no real script to it," said Mario Custodio, Swimmer's partner in the company MobileVision.

Custodio said Swimmer gave him his first break back in New York when he worked for a grocery store.

Custodio wasn't an actor but Swimmer told him he had the right look for the Black Pearl, a film he directed in 1978.

"After I met Saul, my life changed," Custodio said. "I went from the South Bronx to South Spain."

Custodio worked with Swimmer on the 1982 rock documentary, Queen: We Will Rock You.

Custodio said they wanted to make the movie a major production, so they developed the MobileVision Projection System, which projected movies on a 60-foot by 80-foot screen.

"That was really his idea before IMAX," Itzkovitz said.

When Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury died, the partners took the movie on an international tour that played in more than 20 countries.

Abby Hirsch, Swimmer's longtime friend, said he was always the same generous person, even after he became successful.

'GREAT INTEGRITY'

"He was in an industry of sharks, but he had great integrity," she said.

Swimmer moved to Key Biscayne in the 1980s and to Coral Gables in the 1990s.

Last year, Custodio and Swimmer debuted their documentary, Bob Marley and Friends -- Swimmer's last production.

Swimmer, who worked on the documentary for more than five years, used rare footage of a Marley performance that was found in a London storage vault that had been bombed by the Irish Republican Army, he told The Miami Herald last year.

Along with his sister, Swimmer is survived by his brothers, Wolford and Alvin Swimmer.

Services have already been held.

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