R.I.P. Bert Schneider

Bert Schneider, who produced the sixties and seventies counterculture hits Easy Driver as well as the Last Picture Show and Five Easy Pieces, diedMonday inside a hospital in La. He was 78.His daughter Audrey Simon mentioned he'd experienced failing health.The edgy boy of Columbia Pictures leader Abraham Schneider increased to become vital estimate the completely new golden ages of Hollywood when youthful company company directors broke free of studio constraints making films that celebrated the counterculture in the occasions.Schneider began his showbiz career at Columbia’s TV unit Screen Gems where he and director Bob Rafelson increased being partnerson The Monkees. The show’s financial success introduced to greater creative freedom and lastly the seminal filmEasy Driver (1969).Schneider produced 10 othermovies between 1968 and 1981including the Oscar-winning anti-Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds (1974) and Terence Malick’s Occasions of Paradise (1978). Schneider is credited with paving the means by which fordirectors getting a flair for unconventional filmmaking such asGeorge Lucas, George Roy Hill, Paul Mazursky and Sydney Pollack.