Nessa Hyams, a groundbreaking casting director of the New Hollywood whose work on such 1970s masterpieces as Peter Bogdanovich’s screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc?, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, died January 9 at her home in Manhattan. She was 84.
Her death was announced by family. A cause was not specified.
In addition to her casting career – which assembled a roster of performers for some of the most enduring and celebrated films of 1970s – Hyams directed 105 episodes of Norman Lear’s trend-setting soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (starring Louise Lasser) during the shows two and only seasons in 1976 and 1977. Her episode count is second only to that of Jim Drake, who directed 157 of the show’s 325 episodes.
Born November 21, 1941, in New York City to Broadway producer and publicist Barry Hyams and Ruth Hurok, the daughter of famed Russia-born show business impresario Sol Hurok, Nessa was the sister of Capricorn One writer-director Peter Hyams and stepdaughter of Arthur Lief, a Broadway and orchestra conductor who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
In 1971, Hyams launched her career as a casting director on the Robert Mulligan hit coming-of-age drama Summer of ’42, and the following year established herself when she cast Peter Bogdanovich’s screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, which became one of the year’s highest-grossing films. (Her work on another 1972 film, director Brian De Palma’s legendarily troubled comedy Get To Know Your Rabbit starring Tommy Smothers, John Astin, Katherine Ross and Orson Welles, went uncredited).
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