Casting director Lynn Stalmaster, who launched careers of John Travolta and Richard Dreyfuss, dead at 93
Lynn Stalmaster, the Academy Award-winning casting director who helped launch the careers of John Travolta and Richard Dreyfuss, is dead at the age of 93.
He passed away in Los Angeles on Friday, confirmed Casting Society of America executive Laura Adler.
No cause of death was revealed.
Born in Omaha in 1927, Stalmaster originally began his career as an actor, appearing in the Korean War drama “The Steel Helmets” and the John Wayne action thriller “Flying Leathernecks” — both from 1951, according to IMDb.
By the mid-1950s, Stalmaster had transitioned to working as an independent casting director, reported Variety. Early on, he assisted in choosing actors for TV series including “The Lone Wolf” and “Those Whiting Girls.”
Director Robert Wise tabbed him to work on the 1958 film “I Want to Live!” starring Susan Hayward as a condemned death-row inmate. For her performance, she took home the best actress Academy Award.
“A pioneer of our craft, Lynn was a trailblazer with over half a century of world-class film and television casting credits. He was a friend and mentor to many of us,” read a statement by Casting Society of America co-presidents Russell Boast and Rich Mento. “Thank you, Lynn, for showing us the way.”
Stalmaster saw potential in many future Hollywood stars, including a young Dreyfuss, who appears in “The Graduate,” noted The Associated Press.
Other actors who received breaks from Stalmaster are James Caan, Jeff Bridges and Martin Landau.
In the mid-1970s, he suggested to the producers of “Welcome Back, Kotter” that Travolta should play Vinnie Barbarino on the sitcom.
Stalmaster cast more than 200 films during his prodigious six-decade career, notably “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Deliverance,” “Being There,” “Harold and Maude,” “Tootsie” and “The Right Stuff.”
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Thanks to his acting background, he often read scenes with actors he hoped to cast during auditions to bring out their best.
“I could look into their eye and play the scene,” Stalmaster told Variety in 2016. “And I probably played more roles than any other actor in history — and females!”
The following year, he became the first recipient of an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in casting.
