Voting Station

Bruce Gilbert

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Producer

The Resume

    (March 28, 1947- )
    Born in Del Mar, California
    Produced 'Coming Home,' 'Nine to Five,' 'The China Syndrome,' 'The Doll Maker,' 'On Golden Pond,' 'The Morning After' and 'Rollover'
    Worked mainly with IPC (Indo China Peace Committee) Films and with Jane Fonda

Why he might be annoying:

    He shares a name with one of the founding members of the punk band Wire.
    He had no movie experience - before collaborating with Jane Fonda, he was running the Blue Fairyland day-care center which Fonda's daughter Vanessa was attending.
    Screenwriter Nancy Dowd adopted a more simplistic view, calling him 'Jane Fonda's former babysitter.'
    Vanity Fair described the 'Bruce Gilbert formula' for Jane Fonda films as follows: 'In the Gilbert-formula film, Jane would play a good-hearted but unsophisticated woman who gets exposed to injustice, gets wised up, and finds the courage to stand up for what she’s come to believe' (which the magazine characterized as constraining).
    When he and Fonda dissolved their partnership, IPC Films, in 1986, Fonda was mum and offered little reason other than 'He wanted to work on his own projects.'
    These other projects amounted to only two films: 'Man Trouble' (in 1992) and 'Jack the Bear' (in 1992) - released to little fanfare and acclaim (he only produced only one more film for television before retiring).
    When the two reunited and sat down to record the audio commentary track for the 9 to 5 DVD, their relationship came off as acrimonious, talking over each other frequently and with Gilbert at one point telling Fonda to 'quiet down for a second!'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was invaluable in helping to rehabilitate Jane Fonda's image following the 'Hanoi Jane' anti-aircraft gun fiasco.
    His first four films racked up six Oscar wins and two Best Picture nominations -- not bad for a producer with limited experience.
    He helped to make Dolly Parton a certified movie star.
    He had to put up with Tom Hayden.
    The China Syndrome - which he co-produced with Michael Douglas - was released twelve days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, which gave the film's subject matter an unexpected prescience.
    He produced the 39th Annual Golden Globe Awards on television in 1982.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying