Gil Cates

Stars

Born Gilbert Katz on June 6, 1934 in New York, NY

Died Oct. 31, 2011 in UCLA, CA

Gil Cates was a film and television director and producer, perhaps best known as the producer of the annual Academy Awards show. He also directed a number of feature films, including “I Never Sang for My Father,” “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams” and “Oh God! Book II.”

Cates founded UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, serving as its dean from 1990 to 1998. In 1994, calling on the entertainment industry contacts he’d cultivated as UCLA dean, he founded the Geffen Playhouse, serving as its producing director. The Westside theater’s main stage was renamed in his honor in 2010.

Cates died Oct. 31, 2011, on the UCLA campus in Westwood. He was 77.

— Rebecca Trounson for the Los Angeles Times July 8, 2010