Film Career
He turned to film production in the late 1960s, working with Sanford Lieberson's production company Goodtimes Enterprises. His successes as a film producer include Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, The Duellists (Ridley Scott's feature film debut), Chariots of Fire (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Local Hero, Memphis Belle, Meeting Venus and The Killing Fields and The Mission with Roland Joffé (which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986) mostly in association with Goldcrest.
He was Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Columbia Pictures from 1986 to 1988. During his time at Columbia he was criticised for what some saw as a condescending attitude toward the Hollywood film industry, and for not sufficiently exploiting the studio's few box office hits. This strategic failure contributed to the sale of the studio to Sony.
Read more about this topic: David Puttnam
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