Producer on ‘Space Jam,’ ‘Old School’ and the ‘Hangover’ Films, Dies at 74
The ‘Late Shift’ Emmy nominee also co-wrote ‘Stripes’ and ‘Meatballs,’ directed ‘Feds’ and worked with Ivan Reitman, a fellow Canadian, and Todd Phillips.
Goldberg died Wednesday in Los Angeles, his brother, Deuce Bigalow screenwriter Harris Goldberg, said: “He was a gentle, lovely guy, he was my hero. He was everything I measured myself against.”
No cause of death was immediately available.
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Goldberg was the older son of Irwin, an aeronautical engineer, and Audrey, an artist.
He met Reitman for the first time in 1966 at McMaster University in his hometown, and he starred as a Mac freshman in the short film Orientation (1968), which Reitman wrote and directed. Fox acquired it and screened it in theaters before Peter Yates’ John and Mary (1969), starring Dustin Hffman and Mia Farrow.
The pair then got into trouble when they produced The Columbus of Sex (1969) and were charged and fined with making and exhibiting an “obscene” film after showing it to a student body. The experience “bonded them and drove them to make it together in show business,” Harris Goldberg said.
Danny followed Reitman to Los Angeles, and over the decades, the pair partnered in writing, producing and/or directing capacities on The House by the Lake (1976), Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Heavy Metal (1981), Feds, Junior (1994), Space Jam (1996), Private Parts (1997), Commandments (1997), Fathers’ Day (1997), Six Days Seven Nights (1998), Road Trip (2000), Evolution (2001), Killing Me Softly (2002), Old School (2003) and EuroTrip (2004).
For the small screen, Goldberg and Reitman shared Emmy nomination for outstanding made for television movie in 1996 for producing HBO’s The Late Shift, and they worked on the 1994 Saturday morning CBS cartoon Beethoven.
After producing the Phillips-helmed Road Trip, Old School and School for Scoundrels (2006), Goldberg got together with the director again and found spectacular success with The Hangover (2009), which starred Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms and grossed more than $469 million on a budget of $35 million.
Goldberg then produced the Phillips-directed Hangover sequels in 2011 and 2013 that raked in another $587 million and $362 million, respectively, plus Due Date (2011), another Galifianakis-starring comedy.
