Legendary Producer Larry Gordon, at 90, Delivers the Oscar Speech He Never Got to Give

You know it was a special night when Jerry Bruckheimer walked to the valet and described what he’d just witnessed in the backyard of Sherry Lansing’s Bel-Air home as “the greatest speech” he’s ever heard.

One legendary producer complimenting another after Lawrence Gordon — best known in Hollywood as Larry, and as a guiding force behind films like 48 Hrs., Predator, Die Hard, Field of Dreams, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Hellboy and dozens of others — took home Producers United’s inaugural Legacy Award at the organization’s first major fundraiser.

The intimate affair, spread across Lansing’s lawn with sweeping views of the city, was filled with some accomplished, dogged and (currently) beleaguered producers in the business along with industry insiders like CAA’s Kevin Huvane. Before Gordon took to the stage to accept his trophy, he was gifted with praise from two other legends of the field, married producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. Marshall, who met him first in the 1970s, when they made movies like The Driver and The Warriors together. “And somewhere in there, Larry became our family,” Marshall noted.

“I came into Larry’s life just a little bit later,” Kennedy continued, “but for the last 30 years, he and I have been in the trenches together on something we both believed in deeply —the producers’ code of credits for the PGA and getting the [Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences] to recognize the people who actually do the work of producing. It was a long fight. There were plenty of moments we didn’t think we’d succeed, but Larry never wavered. That’s who he is —always looking out for the rest of us.”

Marshall said fighting for the integrity of credits mattered a lot to him personally as well, “because we’ve all watched producing credits get handed out as favors, traded like currency, attached to people who never set foot on set.” (The fight is the heart of the mission for Producers United, an advocacy group of 300 dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights of career producers in film and TV.)

The couple cited Gordon’s special skills in producing movies like 48 Hrs., Field of Dreams and Die Hard, all which took a level of tenacity and vision to get made. “Everybody in this town now talks about it like it was inevitable,” Kennedy said of Die Hard. “It wasn’t. Larry has said it himself. Every action star in Hollywood turned that part down. [Sylvester] Stallone, [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, [Clint] Eastwood, [Harrison] Ford, Burt Reynolds. The list goes on. They couldn’t get anyone to play John McClane,” she recalled, to which Marshall said, “And then Larry’s instinct was, ‘What about that guy from Moonlight?”

“Larry has navigated this business with compassion, grace, legendary firmness and, above all, an amazing sense of humor,” she said. “And Larry doesn’t just produce movies. He produces legends and he remembers how every frame was made.”

That legendary firmness and trademark sense of humor were on full display as Gordon delivered a nearly 20-minute acceptance speech that had guests like Lansing rolling with laughter, nodding in agreement or cheering with validation over his comments on how the heyday has been replaced by a constricted ecosystem of tighter budgets, evaporated backends and credit wars. He dropped plenty of f-bombs and other expletives along the way, too.

“This is something you guys have never seen. You know what this is?” Gordon said in kicking off his comments and raising a hand to reveal a rubber finger pad. “It’s not a rubber for a little dick. It’s an accountant’s thing that used to flip page. Was that too dirty?”

Not for this crowd. Seated at the event were Brian Grazer, David Hoberman, Lynette Howell Taylor, Chris Bender, Albert Berger, Bill Block, Stacey Sher, John Burnham, Lauren Shuler Donner, Carla Hacken, Andrea Sperling, Matt DelPiano, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Lauren Dolgen, David Friendly, Andrew Lazar, Debbie Liebling, Michael London, Kevin Misher, Nate Moore, Mary Parent, Sarah Schechter, Cathy Schulman, Risa Shapiro, Frank Smith, sisters Jennifer and Suzanne Todd (both of whom offered introductory remarks), Mark Vahradian, J. Todd Harris, Janet Yang, Chris Day and dozens of others.

After reading Gordon recapped his unlikely career path, as a native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, who went on to Tulane University. He broke into the business by working as a “chauffeur gopher” for legendary TV producer Aaron Spelling. He rose through the ranks as a young executive at companies like ABC Television before segueing to the film side with American International Pictures. In 1984, he emerged as president and COO at 20th Century Fox. During his time running the studio, he brought in James Cameron and hired him to direct 1986’s Aliens.

“When I turned 90 in March, I suddenly realized I’ve been alive for 36 percent of the history of the United States, 78 percent of the Hollywood movie business and 100 percent of the television business. I actually met Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck, Sam Goldwyn, and I even went to the founder of Paramount Adolf Zukor’s 100th birthday party,” Gordon said in recalling his impressive run. “I’ve done almost everything to do in this business. I’ve written, I acted, produced. I was a senior vice president of major’s television studio and president of a major’s film studio. And I’m the only person that will ever be able to say that they worked for Marvin Davis, Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch at the same time. And I only lost one major artery.”

He came close to directing once by after hearing about something Robert De Niro said to director Michael Cimino on The Deer Hunter, he changed his mind. “Robert De Niro, who wasn’t even working that day, had shown up and urgently needed to see him. Michael left the set, raced back and found De Niro nervously pacing in his trailer. ‘What’s wrong, Bob?’ ‘You know, Michael, it’s killing me. I just can’t figure out what this character would have in his wallet.’ In his frigging wallet. That was it for me.”

Not to say that his career path as a producer was less frustrating. “Every project I produced for movies or television, even fluffy Xanadu was a fucking war. Think about it. You’re always fighting with somebody, the financier, agents, lawyers —theirs and yours — managers, business affairs, legal, writers, directors, actors, marketing and, finally, distribution. So every day, I put on my steel helmet and went into battle,” he explained.

Gordon closed his comments by delivering an Oscar speech as he said it would be his “only chance” and he’s had one ready since 1990 when he was nominated for producing Field of Dreams alongside his brother Charles Gordon. They lost to Driving Miss Daisy, which he referred to as Driving That Old Fart Miss Daisy. Gordon thanked Producers United, Lansing, Marshall and Kennedy and acclaimed director Walter Hill, who was in the audience. He produced seven of the filmmaker’s movies and during their friendship they “had zero fights, which has to be a record in our business.”

He fought back tears at one point by recalling how his father, who was bipolar, was incredibly tough on him as a kid. “When he was Up Daddy, I was the greatest, the apple of his eye. When he was Down Daddy, I was, ‘You’ll never be anything. You are nothing and you’ll always be a nothing.’ Despite this, I was a daddy’s boy. Unfortunately, he died suddenly at age 56 when I was deftly, as he had so graciously predicted, a complete nothing. He never saw my success or met my family.”

He closed by revealing that he and his brother made Field of Dreams as an homage to their late father, a Herculean task considering the film’s logline that follows a farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his field so that the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson can reunite with a team of dead players all because that farmer heard a voice whisper “if you build it, he will come.”

“We were turned down and practically thrown out by every studio more than once. It took years, but we got it made,” Gordon said before delivering his personal mantra as an exclamation point on the speech. “Never take no for a fucking answer.”

Below is Gordon’s full speech.

When I heard I was being awarded the very first Legacy Award from I was shocked. Why me? Was it because I was the first Jew from Mississippi to produce a movie? They said, “No, you’re an original OG. I was pissed. I thought they meant old geezer. After I accepted, I got pretty damn cocky. So to bring myself down, I went to my best anti-cocky weapon — a comment card from a sneak preview that I had framed in my office for more than 50 years from a movie I produced called Rolling Thunder. This is a movie that Quentin Tarantino named as No. 10 on his 12 favorite films list.

This is from that card: How would you rate this motion picture? “Poor.” What did you especially like about this movie? “Nothing.” What word would you use to describe this movie? “Sick.” Was the movie too long, too short, or just right? “It shouldn’t have started.” What do you think would improve this movie? “Burn the print.” And here’s the capper: What did you dislike or would you like changed? “I’d rather take my mother to see Deep Throat.” Let me take John Wayne to see this piece of shit. If that won’t bring you down, nothing can.

I don’t know what’s more fucked-up: our country or producing. I won’t bore you or torture you with how good things used to be deal-wise for us old timers. It was a gravy tray with the biscuit wheels. I realize that’s gone, at least for now. Possibly there are a couple of old-timers here who will know what I’m talking about, the formidable, amazing Top Gun producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, and the expensive watch that keeps on ticking, Brian Grazer.

I want you to know there are some problems you have today that we had back then. There were always various individuals trying to share credit and sometimes our fees, and they would even try to share our back end. Anyone remember those back ends? Of course, in my day, the actors that wanted to share with us were giant bankable movie stars, not Luke McGluke or Sadie Glutz, and whoever some of these people are today. You do have one important major advantage over us dinosaurs. There were only three networks, and later a fourth where we could sell our television projects, and eight major studios who were financing at the most about 20 to 25 movies a year. That was a total of about 200, which seems like about what just Netflix makes in a year.

They were practically no independent financiers, domestic or foreign. The ultra reliable ChatGPT says there were 516 scripted TV shows just a couple of years ago, and 794 reality shows in 2025. That’s in addition to the several hundred movies being financed today from all sources. So, obviously content will always be king. That’s the one thing that in my opinion won’t change. It may be shown in theaters or on television, on your phone, in a pair of eyeglasses or up your ass. Something else will never change. It has always been really hard, almost impossible, to get any project financed. And there will always be some asshole arrogant executive who has no idea what we do or how we do it. They will drive you crazy and you will want to kill them.

At times, as they gave unbelievably horrible, unusable notes, I used to fantasize doing a John Wick on them. Every project I produced for movies or television, even fluffy Xanadu was a fucking war. Think about it. You’re always fighting with somebody, the financier, agents, lawyers —theirs and yours — managers, business affairs, legal, writers, directors, actors, marketing, and finally distribution. So every day, I put on my steel helmet and went into battle. Speaking of war, and we produce our N1 for our survival, I want to be clear about one thing: I’ve been a member of the PGA for over 50 years and I still belong and so do many other members of Producers United. The PGA has almost 8,500 members. I’ve never really understood how we found that many producers. But thankfully they all pay dues.

They say strength is in numbers. So, in our battle, I consider the PGA to be like the U.S. Army; big and well-financed and doing their best for all of us. When I discovered there was a group called Producers United with only 300 members, I did my due diligence and I realized they are special forces like Navy SEALs; experienced, well organized, well-trained, and incredibly skilled and mucho determined. So I joined them too. Just like in any major conflict, it takes the Army and special forces to win. It’s OK so far.

When I turned 90 in March, I suddenly realized I’ve been alive for 36 percent of the history of the United States, 78 percent of the Hollywood movie business and 100 percent of the television business. I actually met Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck, Sam Goldwyn, and I even went to the founder of Paramount Adolf Zukor’s 100th birthday party. I’ve done almost everything to do in this business. I’ve written, I acted, produced. I was a senior vice president of major’s television studio and president of a major’s film studio. And I’m the only person that will ever be able to say that they worked for Marvin Davis, Barry Diller, and Rupert Murdoch at the same time. And I only lost one major artery.

But I’ve never directed. I thought about it. I even had a firm offer —the storymay be true, maybe not — from Michael Cimino that happened when he was directing the Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter, put the final nail in the coffin of my directing ambition. He was shooting out in the boondocks when he got a call telling him to come back to base camp. Robert De Niro, who wasn’t even working that day, had shown up and urgently needed to see him. Michael left the set, raced back and found De Niro nervously pacing in his trailer. “What’s wrong, Bob?” “You know, Michael, it’s killing me. I just can’t figure out what this character would have in his wallet.” In his frigging wallet. That was it for me. I gave up the chance of ever being mentioned once in a good review and settle for as only the producer, no critic ever mentioning my name or blaming me for making a piece of crap.

I know it’s terribly hard today, but let’s talk about what we do for a living. From the time I was a boy, I had a slight problem. The minute anything got boring, I completely tuned out. Maybe I was the first person with ADD? Back then they called it Larry refuses to pay attention in class. When I got my first job in our business, it was as the legendary producer Aaron Spelling’s chauffeur gopher. I drove him to and from work, stayed in his office all day, served lunch, mixed his 5 p.m. martini, and picked up everything from dry cleaning to his German Shepherd’s dog shit. But boy, it was fun and did I learn. And surprisingly, for the first time in my life, I had a job that wasn’t boring. I was in show biz.

Orson Welles once said that making a movie is the biggest electric train set a boy could have. What we do has never, ever been boring to me. Have I been pissed off? Have I been discouraged? Have I threatened to quit? A million, gazillion times. But do anything else? Never. I look at my own career as a miracle. The only thing I might have been successful at besides this is selling Toyotas.

The other day, a producer friend called me for advice. He had gotten a go on his movie from a streamer. Instead of being thrilled, he was totally dejected because his fee from his last movie, which was three long years ago, was $800,000. Now he was being offered measly $500,000. I said to him, “That’s easy. Just pass. I’m sure you’ll find a job in some other industry that pays you a half million dollars for a year’s worth doing something you love to do. Good luck with that.”

That’s what we all have to think about when any offer comes our way. What are our choices? To me, what I love most about my job as a producer was that every time one of my projects got made, I was able to live a new life. They see a [cat] has nine lives. I think I’ve had at least 50. Think about it. When we actually get the luxury of making a project, we get a new family, new friends, enemies, maybe even lovers, plus a million memories on each one. Some pleasant, some not so fucking pleasant. Can you imagine how many stories I could tell you just from Water World?

As a producer, the only thing I haven’t done is win an Oscar. The year Field of Dreams was nominated, I was sitting in the second row as my friends, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, announced the winner. I was this close. I could have sworn I saw Jack give me a, you’re the winner wink. Driving that old fart Miss Daisy kicked our ass. We sucked wind. So, unfortunately for you, fortunately for me, as a captive audience, you’re going to have to accept as I have, this will be my only chance to ever given an Oscar speech. I’ve had one ready since 1990.

Like all Oscar speeches, I have to do my thank yous and sorry they can’t play me off. First, I’d like to thank Producers United for this wonderful honor, keep up the good fight. I’d like to thank my dear friend, the living legend that is the incomparable Sherry Lansing who graciously offered her beautiful home for our event. And I must give a shout out to our late husband, the great Billy Friedkind, whom I adored and who if he was here today, he’d be upstairs looking out the window saying, “What is this bullshit?” Am I right, Sherry?

I’m completely honored and totally shocked that the benefactors and sponsors came up with even one peso to honor me. You love me, you really love me. But thanks for your generosity. It’s immensely appreciated. To Kathy and Frank who know more about making movies than I will ever know, not only are they [Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award] recipients, but Kathy has been nominated not one time like me, but eight times for best picture. She’s the Diane Warren of producers. And fucking Frank. Little Frankie is an EGOT winner. I’m so fucking jealous, right? He is a consumante movie and television producer, Broadway producer, director and one of the top documentarians in our business. And more importantly, he saved my ass on the movies we worked on together because I hated to go to the fucking set. All I would do is say, “Walter [Hill], are you OK? How are you? Is everybody OK?” I’d go back to try to get the next movie ready to go.

Special thanks to the great writer and director and Laurel Award recipient, Walter Hill, for whom I produced seven movies and with whom I’ve had zero fights, which has to be a record in our business. We never had a cross word. It’s amazing. Lastly, to the bravest, strongest person I know, my beautiful amazing wife, Deidre. She went through something I could never, ever have gone through, ever, and she has had the great pleasure of living for the past 30 plus years in the ultimate threesome with both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Finally, as in a lot of Oscar speeches, I have to thank the man upstairs. In this case, I don’t mean God. I mean my daddy, big George Gordon. He was big and tough, violent tempered, charismatic, and 100 percent medically diagnosed bipolar. Sound familiar? When he was up daddy, I was the greatest, the apple of his eye. When he was down daddy, I was, “You’ll never be anything. You are nothing and you’ll always be a nothing.” Despite this, I was a daddy’s boy. Unfortunately, he died suddenly at age 56 when I was deftly, as he had so graciously predicted, a complete nothing. He never saw my success or met my family.

Many years after my daddy’s death, a friend of his in New Orleans asked if I wanted a letter daddy had written to him about me. Here’s a paragraph in that letter: “We talked to him last night. He’s still in Las Vegas and is getting ready to go to Los Angeles. He did not find what he was looking for in Vegas evidently and he has promised that if he doesn’t get settled in Los Angeles, he’s going to be ready to come home, settle down and run the store.” FYI, the store was the Easy Pay Furniture Store in Belzoni, a town of under 200,000 people in the humid, violent, 100 percent segregated, Mississippi Delta. Who wouldn’t love that opportunity?

The letter continued: “[Gordon’s mother] Natalie and I both feel that Larry is just going to have to find out for himself that what he is looking for doesn’t exist and sooner or later he’s going to have to come to Earth and realize that life is not just a round of glamour and romance and adventure, and we feel that when he does find this out for himself, he’ll be ready to settle down and make something of himself.”

When I got this letter, I was the president of 20th Century Fox. I had to close my office door, turn off the phones and sit there and cry like a baby. That is why my late beloved baby brother Chuck and I fought so hard to get Field of Dreams made. It was an homage to our daddy. By the way, whenever you think you have a hard pitch to sell, think about this one. A farmer plows on his corn crop to build a baseball diamond so that the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson comes back to the team of dead players all because one day working in his field that farmer heard an unattached voice whisper to him in a very easy to decipher message that anyone would quickly get: “If you build it, he would come.”

We were turned down and practically thrown out by every studio more than once. It took years, but we got it made. My mantra, which should be yours and our business’, “never take no for a fucking answer.” To wrap this sucker up so all of you could hope you get your car in the next four hours, I hope and pray that someday when I croak, and daddy and I end up in the same place, I can say to him that what I was looking for does exist and I found it. “Hey, daddy, want to have a catch?” Who says that movies aren’t magic? Thank you very much.