Ebn Ozn - Breakup and Subsequent Activities

Breakup and Subsequent Activities

The duo went their separate ways in 1985. Ebn went on to work with Scritti Politti and producers including Phil Ramone and Arif Mardin. Ozn formed dance music act Dada Nada, and his own label, One Voice Records. Dada Nada was signed to Polydor/London and distributed independently in North America by Ozn, who proved himself an astute businessman, going head-to-head with the major labels and gaining two Top 5 Billboard club hits: "Haunted House" (co-written and produced with Bob Greenberg, and mixed by Mike "Hitman" Wilson and Badboy Bill) and "Deep Love," (co-written with Steve Wight, and mixed by Frankie Knuckles & David Morales and Bad Boy Bill).

Ned "Ebn" Liben died in 1998 of a heart attack in Manhattan, New York, and is survived by his widow Sallie Moore Liben and son Max.

Ozn changed his name to Robert Ozn and went on to become a script analyst, screenwriter and producer. He worked first for free for Oliver Stone and Janet Yang's Ixtlan Films, trading his time in exchange for learning the development and production end of the movie business. He went on to become a paid first-call reader for A-list material for Stone. He was then hired at Miramax, as reader for Pulp Fiction under Oscar-winning producer Richard Gladstein and as contract development exec for much of their European fare and some of horror division Dimension Films' material. He also served as script analyst at Creative Arts Agency (CAA) on projects for Sydney Pollack, Louis Malle, and James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment.

Ozn partnered with Ted Danson (friends from their Broadway days) as executive producers to option Elegies for Angels Punks and Raging Queens, playwright Bill Russell's West End London AIDS drama, for Anasazi/Paramount Television. Danson and Ozn attached their friends who agreed to work for scale if Paramount could secure a commercial-free broadcast, including Michael Douglas, Richard Gere, Patrick Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Priestley and Elizabeth Taylor as well as Danson. However, as of 2007 it remains unproduced; Ozn retains the option.

Ozn and writer/producer Colin Greene sold Storm Warning, a $100 million-plus film, to Paramount for producer Mario Kassar, making the front page of the Hollywood Reporter. That article served as a blessing and a curse. Ozn had just been hired as an executive at Warner Brothers' now-defunct animation division, due to his unusual combination of experience in musical theatre, the record business and the film industry. Ozn was to supervise the development of the script and soundtrack along with Pete Townshend for The Iron Man (later produced without music as The Iron Giant). The Hollywood Reporter article caused a problem with Warner's personnel department: Ozn was informed he could not take his executive position because he'd sold material to the competition.

In 2003, Ozn's and Greene's God's Witness, long on many of the industry's "favorite un-sold spec scripts" lists, was finally made as I Witness, starring Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia de Rossi, for which the writing team received the 2003 Method Fest Best Screenplay Award. Universal released the film in the U.S. and Canada in 2007 and HBO released it internationally.

Ozn left the industry in 2003 to raise his family and returned in 2008, as part of the production team of "Turned Towards the Sun," UK a documentary about the British aristocrat and war hero Micky Burn. He wrote the science fiction disaster film, Earth's Final Hour for Cinetel/Sy Fy Channel. Now divorced, he lives in Los Angeles, Vancouver and Rio de Janeiro.