Press

Degen Pener, The Hollywood Reporter

The Power of Eames

Eames chairs are beloved by Hollywood, and the release of new versions of two of the most iconic will only further whet the appetite. This winter, Herman Miller is imparting a light note to Charles and Ray Eames’ famously comfortable lounger and ottoman, offering them in white leather upholstered ash. And Eames’ sleekly functional Executive Chair (Don Draper’s choice) can now go out on the patio — it has just become available in weather-resistant metal.

 

In recent years, of course, Eames has become an easy signifier of modern-design sensibility — in a recent issue of People, Simon Cowell prominently displayed a lounger in his living room. Collecting originals also has grown to almost become a competitive sport. “I’d see a pair of chairs I loved and I’d come back the next day and ask where they’d gone. ‘Oh, Brad Pitt bought those.’ I was dogged by him,” says Daniel Ostroff, a film producer (The Missing, 2012’s Of Two Minds) and noted collector.

 

Now three exhibits and a new documentary are offering a deeper look at the late husband-and-wife team who revolutionized modern design with furnishings that are at once utilitarian and sculptural.

Dwell, Patrick Sisson

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Charles and Ray Eames

“It makes me feel guilty that anybody should have such a good time doing what they are supposed to do.” It’s easy to imagine Charles Eames laughing with joy after uttering those words, a precinct summary of the way he and his wife and collaborator Ray viewed work. Their incredible accomplishments—spirited, human-centered design unbound by medium—seem like the byproduct of a state where work is play and vice versa.

 

And while their work in furniture, filmmaking and exhibition design is well-documented, there’s even more to their restless creativity than you might imagine. Dwell spoke with Daniel Ostroff, film producer, design historian, and editor of the forthcoming An Eames Anthology: Articles, Film Scripts, Interviews, Letters, Notes and Speeches by Charles and Ray Eames (Yale University Press), and Eames Demetrios, artist, principal of Eames Office, and grandson of the famous couple, to uncover underappreciated and relatively unknown stories about the design icons.

 

art:21 blog, Richard McCoy

No Preservatives
Following the Eames Legacy: A Discussion with Daniel Ostroff

While interest in the work of Charles and Ray Eames remains high, this fall it seems to be peaking: there are countless exhibitions, projects, publications, and auctions that will feature their work, or projects inspired by them. At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, I have been working with Tricia Gilson, Ball State University professor and independent researcher, to study the Eames material contained within the Eero Saarinen-designed Miller House and Garden, located in Columbus, Indiana.

 

Although the Miller House and Garden opened just this year, we’ve already had a lot of scholarly interest in it and its mid-century modern contents. One of the most memorable and knowledgeable visitors we’ve had recently was Daniel Ostroff, who came with some folks from Herman Miller to look at the furnishings in the house. To expand on the conversations we had with him at the Miller House, I invited Tricia to help interview Dan about his work with the Eameses.

Deborah Netburn, VLife

The Art of War
Producer Daniel Ostroff has an eye for rarities

“I feel like collecting is something you are born with,” says producer Daniel Ostroff. “It’s like other inherited congenital diseases like nearsightedness and a propensity for balding.”

 

For the better part of the last 20 years, Ostroff, one of the producers on Ron Howard’s “The Missing,” has given into that obsession. His Hollywood home is chock-full of rare collectibles—from vintage Sony TV sets to a choice selection of midcentury furniture by the likes of George Nakishima and Charles and Ray Eames.

 

But if Ostroff’s interest in product design is about nuance and precision—which it is— his attraction to Afghan war rugs is more emotional. He saw his first war rug, which depict Afghan military struggles through figurative elements woven into tapestries, at a flea market in the 1980s, when Afghanistan was still at war with Russia. “I thought, that’s a narrative,” says Ostroff, pointing at a navy blue rug nailed to his wall with a green army tank woven in the center and lines of small helicopters and tanks on either side. “It’s the story of what life was like under occupation.”

The Rights Report, BPI Communications Inc

Taking things personally Agent Daniel Ostroff on the benefits of independence

Daniel Ostroff set up his literary agency 10 years ago after working at ICM and Writers & Artists Agency. He represents screen writers, producers, directors and books to film.

 

Ostroff’s clients have long been involved in book adaptations. Richard Friedenberg adapted A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, and wrote and directed the movie from the novel The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter and Rennard Strickland. Friedenberg is now working on the screen adaptation of I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. There are, plans for him to direct his own screenplay adaptation of the novel Of Such Small Differences by Joanne Greenberg.

Daily Variety, 5 November 1992

Ostroff Rooted in ‘Tree’ Deal
Friedenberg script among key developments for agency.

A deal for Richard Friedenberg to script “The Education of Little Tree” is among the key new developments for the Daniel Ostroff Agency.

 

The 5-year-old, one-man show has quietly gone about the business of selling the services of its 15 clients, including screenwriter Michael Blake (“Dances With Wolves”) and director Jim McBride (“The Big Easy”).

 

Included on the 39-year-old Ostroff’s list are plans for Friedenberg (“A River Runs Through It”) to write “Little Tree” for producers Jake Eberts and Roland Joffe and to write and direct “Jonathan Takes Enemy” for producer Jeff Wald and Columbia Pictures. Several top Hollywood writers were vying for the “Little Tree” assignment.

 

In addition, Warner Bros. veepee of production Tom Lassally has signed Ostroff client Ken Kaufman to write a live-action Bugs Bunny feature titled “What’s Up Bugs?” and NBC has bought Rob Hedden’s two-hour “Ironside” with Raymond Burr.

Daily Variety, 14 June 1991

Ostroff Agency Has Deal Wheels Spinning

The Daniel Ostroff Agency is flush with new motion picture assignments for its roster of some 15 writer, director, producer and hyphenate clients.

 

A 4-year-old one-man show run by Dan Ostroff, the agency has projects in the works at several companies, including Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, MGM Pathe, Interscope Communications and Guber-Peters Entertainment.

 

Ostroff’s newest client, writer-director-producer Rob Hedden, is scripting a feature for Warner Bros. titled “Relay,” a whodunit to be produced by David Wolper and Bernie Sofronski. The story, about a swim-team coach who is killed, deals with performance enhancing drugs in collegiate sports.

 

According to Ostroff, Paramount previously purchased Hedden’s spec script “Voyeur,” which the writer currently is tailoring for Arsenio Hall to star in and produce. Story centers on a detective who is implicated as the prime suspect in a crime.

The Hollywood Reporter, Andrea King, 24 September 1990

Ostroff Agency gang ropes slate of 11 film, TV projects

After four years of building a strong stable of writers and directors, the Daniel Ostroff Agency and its clients have a corral of 11 feature film and television projects greenlighted – including, Touchstone’s “Honey I Blew Up the Baby” – with a full slate of additional projects in various stages of development.

 

The majority of Ostroff Agency clients are writers and directors, with a few producers or hyphenates making up the remainder.

 

In searching for talent, Ostroff said his first consideration is that “I love their work – and later I take care of making sure everyone else will love it, too.”

 

Ostroff is conservative about the number of clients he takes on because, he said, “I’d rather make 10 calls for one client than five calls each for two clients.”