- Born
- Died
- Renee Furst was one of New York's premier film publicists who helped launch such films as "Cousin Cousine", "Breaker Morant" and "The Gods Must Be Crazy" in America.
Her early experience was as an actress, followed by a stint at Modern Camera doing promotion. She later worked on distribution of '50s films ranging from the Boulting Brothers' "Private's Progress" to the Japanese monster picture "Rodan".
In 1959 she married radio journalist and commentator Peter Furst. That year she got a cram course in he business as account executive at Diener-Hauser-Bates for Don Rugoff's Cinema 5.
As an independent publicist, she helped promote Lou & Gloria Sher's 1969 3-D hit "The Stewardesses". During the '70s she built her reputation as a leading promoter of foreign films, working on the sleepers "Cousin Cousine" and "Bread and Chocolate". Furst became a fixture at the Cannes Film Festival and orchestrated numerous Oscar campaigns, resulting in victories for Hungary's "Mephisto" and Argentina's "The Official Story", among others.
Among the American films she worked on were Jeremy Paul Kagan's "The Chosen"; Luis Mandoki's "Gaby"; Costa-Gavras' "Missing"; and Pia Zadora's starring debut "Butterfly". For Paul Bartel's "Eating Raoul", Furst concocted eye-catching promotions like cookies inscribed "Raoul" for the press screenings and ushers dressed in leather at the premieres.
Distributor Paul Cohen, who released "Mephisto" and "Butterfly", says Furst was "one of the first publicists who brought concept to the publicity campaign". For Alan Clarke's borstal boys drama "Scum", guests were served prison-style food on trays at a trendy downtown club.
She also fought advertising discrimination involving the X rating in a well-publicized protest anent the U.S. release of Jeremy Thomas & Nicolas Roeg's British film "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession".
She did pioneering work in establishing Australian pictures in the U.S. market, notably launching Bruce Beresford's "Breaker Morant". Many filmmakers from around the world became her friends and brought her additions to her collection of toy turtles. Among these are directors Francis Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Carlos Saura, Istvan Szabo, Barbet Schroede, Volker Schlondorff and the late Francois Truffaut.
She was the U.S. representative for the Berlin Film Festival and staged annual press get-togethers for its director, Moritz de Hadeln, in New York.
She died Dec. 21, 1990 in New York of cancer, survived by her husband; sister Sheila Saunders; and stepson Peter Furst Jr.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Lawrence Cohn
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