I'm posting this for those of you who may have encountered Eric Spilker, the
ultimate film fan, at the Columbus Cinevent. He was a regular for many years
and that's where I became acquainted with him. Eric was one of a kind, as
his obituary posted below, clearly shows.
His sense of humor was unusual-eating in a restaurant with Eric was always
memorable as he often would place a plastic cockroach on his dinner plate to
harass the staff. Eric knew a lot of golden age celebrities and I have him
to thank for my "Wizard of Oz" 8X10 autographed by the Wicked Witch herself,
Margaret Hamilton. I always found it interesting that Eric wrote many of the
movie plot descriptions used in TV Guide magazine. He became a film
distributor in 1971 when he purchased the rights to "The Gang's All Here"
from 20th Century Fox and had dazzling new technicolor prints struck-helping
to revive public interest in classic Hollywood films, long before AMC or TCM
would enter the scene. Eric loved the old neighborhood movie houses around
Columbus, so it wasn't surprising that in the early 1980's he spearheaded an
effort to restore and reopen the suburban Arlington Theatre. The theatre
opened in 1935 but closed in 1950. The effort sadly did not succeed.
Declining health kept Eric from travelling back to Ohio for many years, so I
lost touch with him. But I will always remember him..and will miss him
greatly.
Scott
MoPo List Owner
Eric Spilker 1939-2024
Eric James Spilker, 84, film distributor and writer, passed away in
Manhattan July 6, 2024. He is preceded in death by his parents, Francis
Spilker and Bernice Buege Spilker of Upper Arlington, Ohio, and his brother,
Allan J. Spilker of Grove City, Ohio. A number of Buege cousins in Ohio
survive. There will be no services.
Fascinated with movies from an early age, Eric was born August 13, 1939, in
Toledo, Ohio, moved to Columbus in 1941, and graduated from suburban Upper
Arlington High School in 1957 along with friend Jack Nicklaus. As a child
he took buses by himself all over Columbus to see movies in small
neighborhood theaters, a passion he never lost. He also developed a habit of
never passing a dog on the street without petting it: no dog in New York
went unpetted. And few farmers markets went unvisited. As a young man he
worked for the Columbus Dept. of Water, and served in the Army. Following a
stint as a floor director for WLW-C (now NBC4) and WBNS-TV in the early
1960s, he moved to New York, writing for the Muscular Dystrophy Association,
ASCAP and TV Guide, where he crafted capsule film reviews. He worked a year
at the 1964 NY World's Fair, then returned to Columbus and graduated from
The Ohio State University in 1968 with a B.A. in Journalism and a member of
Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Returning again to New York, he was a reporter for Variety, a researcher at
Photofest photo agency, a witness to the Stonewall riot, and as a continuing
education teacher at Marymount Manhattan College, he brought Celeste Holm,
Otto Preminger, Margaret Hamilton and others to speak to his classes.
His life changed In 1971 when he purchased the distribution rights for the
20th Century Fox film, Busby Berkeley's "The Gang's All Here," (1943) famous
for its psychedelic Technicolor and iconic appearance by Carmen Miranda.
After a clip featured on the Johnny Carson show piqued public interest in
the film, Eric took it on the road. He was its sole distributor for a number
of years. He later licensed reissue rights to ten more 20th Century-Fox
classics, including "Laura" and "All About Eve."
He remained self-employed as the Spilker Film Company, renting films to
museums and film festivals around the world. In 2019 he sold his collection
of 2,000 film titles in both 16 and 35mm to the Harvard Film Archive. For
many years he was the proud owner of Clark Gable's personal print of "Gone
With The Wind."
Eric counted stars of Hollywood's golden age among his friends, including
Carleton Carpenter, Gale Sondergaard, Piper Laurie, Robert Osborne, and many
more. Kitty Carlisle once tried to identify a film industry person on CBS's
"To Tell the Truth" quiz show by asking, "Do you know who Eric Spilker is?"
Besides his large film collection, he was known for his encyclopedic
knowledge of Hollywood films of the 1940s and '50s. He is cited in accounts
of the history of Technicolor and the history of film. His final credits
ran on July 6, 2024.
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