Anna Gross, Producer and Film Executive, Dies at 68

Anna Gross, a producer and film executive who collaborated with Dino De Laurentiis, Sydney Pollack, Bernd Eichinger and Vittorio Cecchi Gori, has died. She was 68.

Gross died July 23 in Twentynine Palms, California, after a battle with cancer, her cousin Mikie Heilbrun told The Hollywood Reporter.

Soon after graduating from Columbia University, Gross began an eight-year stint with De Laurentiis, serving in various capacities on the producer’s films including Death Wish (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), King Kong (1976), The Shootist (1976), King of the Gypsies (1978) and Ragtime (1981).

As vp production for Pollack, she worked on the director’s The Electric Horseman (1979) and on development for Tootsie (1982) and Out of Africa (1985).

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The native New Yorker spent much of the 1980s working in Germany with filmmaker Bernd Eichinger, overseeing production on his films The NeverEnding Story (1984), The Name of the Rose (1986) and Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989).

She set up and ran the L.A. outpost of Eichinger’s Constantin Film, then was vp production for Cecchi Gori on such movies as Mediterraneo (1991), winner of the Oscar for best foreign language film; Il Postino (1994); and Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Star Maker (1995).

Gross also looked after production for Cecchi Gori on Robert De Niro’s directorial debut, A Bronx Tale (1993), and worked on Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful (1997).

More recently, she oversaw awards campaigns for foreign films including Eichinger’s Downfall (2004), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008) and served on the board of directors of the L.A.-based production company Hypomania Content.

Survivors also include two nieces and three nephews. Donations in her memory can be made to itgetsbetter.org or nextstepfitness.org.