Ivan Reitman, director of 'Ghostbusters', dies

Film director and producer Ivan Reitman, responsible for Ghostbusters, Kindergarten Cop,

Incorrigible

, died Saturday at the age of 75 in California, while he slept, at his home in Montecito. .

Jason, Catherine and Caroline, the three children of the producer of

announced in a statement: “Our family is grieving the unexpected loss of a husband, father and grandfather who taught us to always look for the magic in life. ”.

The cause of his death has not been made public.

More information

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Born in the former Czechoslovakia and raised in Canada, Ivan Reitman became an innovator of American comedy when he led the arrival of John Belushi in the cinema, the most brilliant and wildest of a generation of comedians like Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd, tanned first in theaters and clubs and later on television, who benefited from Reitman's films to achieve stardom.

Reitman's parents were Jews from the Hungarian minority in present-day Slovakia who had survived the Nazi genocide (his mother was in Auschwitz and his father in the resistance) and who fled their country before the arrival of communism when Reitman was four years old.

He studied at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, where he made his first short films, and there he met some future geniuses of comedic acting: Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin and Rick Moranis, who would end up reunited in the television program SCTV.

His first job was on a new television network in Toronto, and there he crossed paths with Dan Aykroyd.

There was a breeding ground that predicted a radical change in American comedy, thanks mainly to those comedians who began to gravitate around the Second City company,

Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, at the Oscar nominees luncheon in 2008.MARIO ANZUONI (REUTERS)

Reitman made his debut as a director and producer in 1973 with

with Andrea Martin and Rick Moranis, a film with a very low budget but which opened enough doors for him to produce two of David Cronenberg's first films and, above all, raise

directed by John Landis in 1978, and that was the cinematographic starting signal.

The following year he himself directed

and in 1981

with Bill Murray Unleashed.

And then came

Reitman says that one of the test shots before filming, when he saw the protagonists with the suits, he realized that they were facing something very big.

The script had been written by Aykroyd for Belushi.

But because of his death, Murray replaced him as the lead, and the writers (Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and, uncredited, Reitman) changed the tone to accommodate Murray's style.

The film, which was shot on a very tight budget, sometimes even shot on the sly, guerrilla-style on the streets of New York, grossed more than €260 million worldwide, earning two Oscar nominations.

Five years later, as it could not be less, they released their second part.

Reitman, with the quartet of ghostbusters, on the set of the first film in New York.

But Reitman was always a fast filmmaker.

Before

he wrote, directed and premiered

a comedy that he has won over time thanks to a Robert Redford who laughs at himself and Debra Winger, splendid as the protagonist's nose ringer;

and

in which he teamed up with Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger as unlikely brothers.

Those 1980s and 1990s are Reitman's heyday, with titles like

(seed of

which even took advantage of its sets),

or

in which he joined a couple who failed in their chemistry: Harrison Ford and Anne Heche.

In return, Reitman gave Schwarzenegger enough confidence to try out different roles and enjoy comedy more.

great producer

As a producer, Reitman also had a keen eye.

As a director he defended staying behind, giving priority to the stars, to the scripts, leaving improvisation free... and he did the same as a producer of the

of

of

or supporting the films of his son Jason, like

Among his latest works as a director there are interesting titles such as

(2006), or

(2015), which went unnoticed.

Best were

(2001) and

(2011) at the box office.

Last year it was announced that Reitman was going to direct a sequel to

titled

and that it was going to shoot this past January with DeVito, Schearzenegger and Tracy Morgan.

That project has remained in the air.

Of course, as a producer he has left a brilliant resume, prolific in good works, and that closes, in a strange turn of life, with the recent premiere of

which took up the original story where it left off in 1989, and directed and co-written by his son Jason has been a moving and vibrant tribute to the late Harold Ramis and, since Saturday, to Ivan.