Henry Jaglom, the distinctively independent filmmaker known for defying box-office trends to create unique, intimate films exploring personal relationships and the rich inner lives of women, passed away at 87 on Monday at his Santa Monica home.
His daughter, Sabrina Jaglom, confirmed the news of his passing.
Over his career, Jaglom helmed over 20 features, consistently choosing to work outside the big studio system and challenging industry norms. Although he wrote or co-wrote every one of his screenplays, he was famous for his improvisational directing, which gave actors the freedom to evolve their characters and craft dialogue spontaneously during filming.
This unconventional approach led to candid, free-flowing films like his 1983 romantic comedy, “Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?” with Karen Black. While a New York Times review by Janet Maslin suggested the film sometimes risked “chattering away its welcome,” she praised its “loose, funny abandon” and undeniable spontaneity.
Jaglom was known for producing films on incredibly tight budgets, often utilizing free locations like his parents’ gray-shingled residence in East Hampton, N.Y., where he filmed the 1995 family drama “Last Summer in the Hamptons.” He further economized by casting friends, his wife, and even his ex-wife in his projects.
His own life experiences, no matter how personal or raw, frequently served as the primary wellspring for his cinematic narratives.
Following his divorce from actress Patrice Townsend, the two bravely revisited their past by co-starring in his 1985 comedy “Always.” The film featured them as a middle-aged couple at a Fourth of July party in their former Hollywood home, contemplating the weight of their decision to divorce.
His conversations with his second wife, actress Victoria Foyt, regarding parenthood inspired the 1994 comedy “Babyfever.” This film, featuring a predominantly female ensemble, explored women’s anxieties and desires surrounding motherhood and the pressure of biological clocks.
“Babyfever” belonged to an unofficial trilogy focusing on women’s hopes and worries. The series also included “Eating” (1990), a film where women at a birthday gathering candidly discuss their food-related struggles, and “Going Shopping” (2005), a witty exploration of shopping as a form of therapy for some women.
Jaglom felt compelled to create films centered on women’s experiences and concerns, largely because mainstream cinema often neglected these themes. In a recent interview with novelist Mary Tabor, he lamented that “Hollywood is still a male town with male producers, mostly male directors, male writers,” who cater to “teenage boys in the Midwest who want to see space aliens or vampires.”
“I aim my films,” he explained, “at a 10 or 15 percent, hopefully, level of the audience that wants to see grown-up films about human relationships.”
Jaglom conceded that his cinematic works often evoked strong, polarized reactions: audiences either loved them or hated them. Many critics frequently characterized his films as meandering and self-indulgent. The Guardian, in 1991, highlighted various descriptions of his movies, including “cinema as personal therapy,” “psychobabble,” and “diaries as art.”
“It’s fortunate I’m so arrogant,” Jaglom candidly shared with the newspaper. “I don’t mind bad reviews. I used to send the worst ones to people as Christmas presents.”
Even his skeptics often recognized his bold vision. As Ms. Maslin noted in her review of “Eating,” if viewed with a “colder eye,” the characters “would quickly become insufferable.” Yet, she acknowledged, Jaglom’s “extremely fond” portrayal of his diverse cast of narcissists imbued “Eating” with much of its warmth and humor.
He also garnered significant praise. Roger Ebert, for instance, highly admired Jaglom’s 1997 romance, “Déjà Vu,” featuring Victoria Foyt, Stephen Dillane, and Vanessa Redgrave. This film skillfully used elements of magic realism to depict a man and woman discovering love amidst the complexities of midlife, a story directly inspired by Jaglom’s own blossoming relationship with Foyt.
Ebert described the film as “not a weepy romantic melodrama but a sophisticated film about smart people.” He elaborated that the protagonists became compelling lovers “not because they are swept away, but because they regard what has happened to them, and accept it.”
Jaglom began his career in Hollywood during the 1960s, a transformative era when television’s ascendance dismantled the traditional studio system, paving the way for unconventional young filmmakers like himself.
He secured early acting roles in films exploring the hippie movement, such as Richard Rush’s “Psych-Out” (1968), which chronicled San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene and starred Jack Nicholson and Susan Strasberg. The following year, Jaglom contributed as an editor to Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider,” a seminal counterculture film of its time.
In 1971, Jaglom made his directorial debut with “A Safe Place,” a film starring Tuesday Weld as a young woman adrift in a fantastical, childlike world amidst the realities of New York City. The cast also included Jack Nicholson and a memorable late-career performance from Orson Welles.
The film showcased Jaglom’s experimental sensibilities, employing an avant-garde narrative where past, present, and future intertwined. Reviewing for The Times, Vincent Canby remarked that Jaglom “looks like a young director attempting to walk without ever having learned to crawl,” but noted “there are indications that he might crawl with a good deal of style.”
Jaglom displayed similar thematic ambition, becoming one of the first directors to tackle the profound psychological impact of the Vietnam War. His 1976 film “Tracks” featured Dennis Hopper as a paranoid veteran accompanying a fallen comrade’s coffin by train for burial in California. The movie’s unsettling content led to its release being significantly delayed for several years.
His film “Someone to Love,” a poignant reflection on loneliness and divorce, featured one of the final screen performances by Orson Welles. Welles, a close friend and mentor, had dined almost weekly with Jaglom until his passing in 1985; the film premiered two years later. These taped conversations from their lunches were later compiled by movie historian Peter Biskind into the 2013 book “My Lunches With Orson.”
“Orson once told me, ‘The enemy of art is the absence of limitations,’” Jaglom recalled in a 1994 interview with The Washington Post. “That was the most important lesson I ever had about making movies. And it’s why I like to make movies on small budgets.”
Born Henry David Jaglom on January 26, 1938, in London, he was the younger son of Simon M. Jaglom, a successful financier and real estate developer, and Marie (Stadthagen) Jaglom, a noted philanthropist and socialite. His older brother, Michael Emil Jaglom, would go on to act in several of Henry’s films under the stage name Michael Emil.
His father, a Jewish man from what is now Ukraine, escaped to Germany following the Bolshevik Revolution. There, he married Ms. Stadthagen, who was German-Jewish. The couple then relocated to England in the late 1930s to flee Nazi persecution, eventually settling in Manhattan when Henry was an infant.
After completing his studies at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, Henry attended the University of Pennsylvania, immersing himself in the venerable campus theater troupe, the Pennsylvania Players. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1963 before honing his craft under Lee Strasberg at the renowned Actors Studio workshop in New York.
In 1966, Jaglom moved to Hollywood, securing roles in sitcoms like “Gidget” and “The Flying Nun.” A year later, he traveled to Israel to produce an eight-millimeter documentary on the Six-Day War, a film that subsequently captured the attention of Bert Schneider, producer of “Easy Rider.”
Jaglom is survived by his daughter, Sabrina, and a son, Simon Orson Jaglom. Both children were from his marriage to Victoria Foyt, which concluded in divorce in 2013.
Embracing his often-criticized reputation, Jaglom indulged in self-parody with his 1992 film “Venice/Venice,” playing a self-absorbed, maverick director at the Venice Film Festival. Janet Maslin noted in The Times that “Henry Jaglom knows exactly what his critics think of him, and in ‘Venice/Venice’ he tries to beat them to the punch.”
His unique traits were further exposed in the candid 1995 documentary “Who Is Henry Jaglom?” by Henry Alex Rubin and Jeremy Workman.
Regardless of critical or public opinion, Jaglom remained steadfast in his artistic vision. As he famously stated in a 1994 interview with The Chicago Tribune, “There are always people who think you’re not supposed to show the pain, just the solution. But I think you’re supposed to show the truth. I don’t have any solutions.”