Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, United States
biography
As the producer of such seminal blockbusters as “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” and “American Graffiti,” Gary Kurtz suffered the double-edged sword of being behind some of the most influential films in Hollywood history, but all the while, having to stand in the shadow of the far more publicly recognizable George Lucas. Kurtz’s relative anonymity was caused in part by what some regard as a premature, if not acrimonious, split with the Lucas in the early 1980s.Born July 27, 1940, young Kurtz grew up in Los Angeles. He studied film at the University of Southern California from 1959 to
