By Allison Hunter
Daily Bruin Contributor
There’s no business like show business, and no one knows
that better than Gil Cates.
An Emmy award-winning director and producer, Cates was honored
with a special tribute Wednesday evening for his numerous
contributions to the entertainment industry as well as his work as
founding dean of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and
Television.
The ceremony at UCLA’s James Bridges Theater included
remarks from several of Cates’ friends and colleagues in
Hollywood, including Academy Award-winner Karl Malden and
Grammy-nominee Maureen McGovern. The man of the hour, Cates was
also treated to performances by students in the School of Theater,
Film and Television.
Cates was asked to be the founding dean of the School of
Theater, Film and Television at its 1990 creation and served in the
position until 1998.
Andrea Rich, the current president and director of the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, was executive vice chancellor at the
time of the school’s formation, and was instrumental in
bringing Cates aboard as dean.
“He shook the dust off all of us,” Rich said of
Cates at the ceremony.
Cates also produced the Oscars show nine years in a row for the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His producer duties
won him an Emmy in 1991.
“Gil did more shows than any other Academy member,”
said Karl Malden, who, while president of the Academy, originally
hired Cates to produce the awards show. “(His shows) were all
interesting, all exciting, and all of them came under four
hours.”
Malden went on to say that Cates “has a talent to take
something that has very little there and bring it to life.”
Malden mentioned Cates’ work in launching the Geffen
Playhouse in Westwood, which provides UCLA theater students an
opportunity to work with professional actors and directors.
Robert Rosen, who became dean of the School of Theater, Film and
Television when Cates left in 1998, compared Cates to a ringmaster
in a three-ring circus.
He explained that in one ring, Cates is an “industry
statesman,” serving as president of the Directors Guild of
America for two terms and as current producing director of the
Geffen Playhouse.
In the second ring, Cates is a director and a producer who has
worked on more than 25 films as well as numerous television and
Broadway shows. In 1995, he was bestowed with a star on the
Hollywood Walk-of-Fame.
In the third ring, Cates is an educator, serving both as dean
and acting professor of the School of Theater, Film and
Television.
“He put us on the map,” said Rosen.
He went on to cite Cates’ work to create an academic
environment, where students could learn theater techniques in an
extremely professional conservatory atmosphere. At the same time,
students could apply their knowledge in hands-on experience, both
in front of and behind the camera.
The school where Cates has dedicated so much of his time also
announced the establishment of the Gilbert Cates Endowed
Scholarship and Fellowship fund, which will benefit up-and-coming
young filmmakers, performers, writers and designers.
Cates himself said that his work at UCLA has been the most
satisfying of his career.
“The hardest thing to do is touch the future,” Cates
said, discussing the joy he receives from teaching his
graduate-level acting and directing classes.
Cates also said that, because of the school’s location in
Los Angeles, the entertainment industry is looking to UCLA for new
groups of writers, directors and actors for the future.
“This is a movie town like Detroit is an automobile
town,” he said.
Several of Cates’ students opened the ceremony, dressed in
circus attire to keep with the metaphor of Cates as a ringmaster,
and sang the Broadway hit “Another Opening, Another
Show.” After an introduction from Dean Rosen, a taped tribute
performed by dancer Debbie Allen was shown.
Chancellor Albert Carnesale then spoke, describing Cates as a
friend and a member of the UCLA family. Carnesale listed
Cates’ numerous accomplishments while serving as dean,
including the development of a world-renowned faculty and the
establishment of the Dean’s Advisory Board, which includes
several Hollywood celebrities.
Now vice chancellor emeritus, Rich said that she was the person
responsible for Cates’ acceptance of the deanship. But in
subsequent remarks throughout the evening, former chancellor
Charles E. Young, who taped his speech from his office as interim
president of the University of Florida, actor Karl Malden and
writer-producer Hal Kanter all jokingly insisted that they were the
ones who convinced Cates to take the position at UCLA.
Only Maureen McGovern, a singer and an actor who appeared in the
film “The Last Married Couple in America,” directed by
Cates, admitted that she “had absolutely nothing to do”
with Cates’ decision to come to UCLA.
McGovern then performed the Broadway classic “Somewhere
Over the Rainbow” in Cates’ honor.
After a film tribute to Cates produced by Chuck Workman of
Calliope Films, who worked with Cates on several Academy Awards
shows, graduate students Elizabeth Seldon and Robbie Banner, sang
“If It Was You,” re-written in Cates’ honor.
Finally, Dean Rosen and Chancellor Carnesale unveiled a framed
portrait of Cates, photographed by Michele A.H. Smith, that will
hang in Melnitz Hall.
In his acceptance speech, Cates said “There’s not
another school like (UCLA) in the country.” He called
UCLA’s students “truly the best in the
world.”
As the audience gave Cates a standing ovation, the students
dressed as circus performers reappeared to give one last salute to
the man Chancellor Carnesale called “the dean of
deans.”
With the audience clapping along, and Cates beaming, it seemed
the ringmaster got his greatest show on Earth.