Lynn Stalmaster

Stalmaster was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a Jewish family, the son of Irvin A. and Estelle Lapidus Stalmaster.[2][3] His father was the first person of Jewish descent as well as the youngest person appointed to the District Court of Nebraska.[4] He was also active in the local Jewish community serving as president of the Omaha B'nai B'rith.[5] Stalmaster attended Dundee Elementary School in Omaha's Dundee–Happy Hollow Historic District.[2] In 1938, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California where he attended Beverly Hills High School.[6] He overcame his shyness by acting in high school and college.[2] After serving in the U.S. Army, he received a Master of Arts in Theater Arts from UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 1952.[1][6][3]

Stalmaster got his first job in show business as an actor, appearing in the war movies The Steel Helmet (1951) and The Flying Leathernecks (1951). He also acted in the TV series Big Town but soon became involved in the casting department of the same show. Stalmaster established himself quickly as a solid casting director, finding steady work in both television and motion pictures. The name Lynn Stalmaster became well known especially to cinema-goers of the 1970s, when he was credited with casting more than 60 movies of the decade, among them; Fiddler on the Roof, Harold and Maude, The Cowboys, Deliverance, Rollerball, Silver Streak, Black Sunday, Coming Home, Convoy, The Rose, Superman and Being There.[7]

Stalmaster was also responsible for casting TV-shows like Combat!, Gunsmoke, The Untouchables and My Favorite Martian.[7]

He was also a part of Academy Award winning movies such as In the Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Right Stuff and Brian De Palma's 1987 motion picture version of The Untouchables.[7]

Stalmaster was the first casting director to receive credit on a separate card in the main titles of a feature film, starting with The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968. His name since appeared in the main titles of over 180 films, credited as "Casting by Lynn Stalmaster."[8]

In 2016, Stalmaster received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[9][10] He is the first casting director receive an Academy Award.[11]

In 2018, the Casting Society of America began honoring entertainment professionals with the Lynn Stalmaster Award for Career Achievement. Recipients include Annette Bening,[12] Laura Dern,[13] and Geena Davis.[14]

Lynn Stalmaster was married twice and both ended in a divorce – first to Gloria McGough (in 1956); and second to Shirley A. Alexander (from 1962 to 1972), with whom he had two children: son, Lincoln (born in 1966); and daughter, Lara.

• Lynn Stalmaster at IMDb
• Lynn Stalmaster at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television