Gilbert Cates, Former DGA President, to Deliver Commencement Address
Director and producer Gilbert Cates, former President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), will speak at Muhlenberg College’s 161st Commencement on May 17, 2009 at 10 a.m.Thursday, April 16, 2009 11:22 AM
The ceremony will be held on the College’s historic quad. Cates will also be awarded an honorary doctorate.
Cates served two terms as President of the DGA from 1983 to 1987, and has served as a Board Member or officer of the Board since 1975. Currently, he serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the DGA; he has served in that capacity since 1997. Cates is only the third person in history to receive the DGA’s Presidents Award. In 1989, he received the Guild’s Robert B. Aldrich Award for extraordinary service and in 1991 he received the DGA’s Honorary Life Membership. In early 2005, he was also awarded the American Society of Cinematographers Board of Governor’s Award.
Cates is recognized as a leader in television, film and theater. Currently presiding as the Producing Director of the Geffen Playhouse, he is dedicated to enriching the Los Angeles theatrical spectrum by presenting the finest in contemporary and classical theater. As a non-profit professional theater company, the Geffen’s priority is its audience and its community, which it reaches with extensive education and outreach programs. This summer, Cates will direct the World Premiere musical of Nightmare Alley at the Geffen Playhouse. He most recently directed Jeffrey Hatcher’s A Picasso, starring Roma Downey and Peter Michael Goetz, for the Geffen Playhouse. In 2004 he directed a new adaptation of Lerner & Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon, and in September 2002, he directed David Eldridge’s Under the Blue Sky for Geffen Playhouse. He also directed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 2005, the inaugural production in the newly-renovated Geffen Playhouse. In November 1996, Mr. Cates was the recipient of the Jimmy Dolittle Award for Outstanding Contribution to Los Angeles Theater. In 1999 he received the Ovation Award for best play for directing Collected Stories, starring Linda Lavin and Samantha Mathis.
In the early years of his career Cates produced and directed many plays on and off Broadway, including: You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, starring Martin Balsam, Eileen Heckart and George Grizzard; I Never Sang for My Father, starring Hal Holbrook, Lillian Gish, Alan Webb and Teresa Wright; Voices, starring Julie Harris and Richard Kiley; and Tricks of the Trade, starring George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere.
He produced and directed the 1970 film version of the Broadway hit I Never Sang for My Father, starring Melvyn Douglas, Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons. The movie earned three Academy Award nominations. Cates also directed Joanne Woodward and Sylvia Sidney in the 1973 film Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, which received two Oscar nominations. Other film directing credits include: The Promise, One Summer Love, The Last Married Couple in America, Oh! God Book II and Backfire.
Cates further distinguished himself as director and/or producer of a number of television specials. These include 11 years as Executive Producer of An American Celebration at Ford’s Theatre, a live one hour television special on ABC; NBC’s 1972 Emmy Award-winning To All My Friends on Shore, starring Bill Cosby; ABC’s 1974 The Affair starring Nathalie Wood and Robert Wagner; and NBC’s 1975 After the Fall starring Faye Dunaway and Christopher Plummer. Other film credits include: Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, The Kid from Nowhere, Country Gold, Faerie Tale Theatre’s Rapunzel and Goldilocks and the Three Bears; Hobson’s Choice, Burning Rage, Consenting Adults, Fatal Judgment, Do You Know the Muffin Man, Call Me Anna, Absolute Strangers, In My Daughter’s Name, and Tom Clancy’s Netforce. He directed James Agee’s A Death in the Family, for Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection on PBS. His most recent small screen project was a hi-definition adaptation of Collected Stories, for PBS Hollywood Presents.
Cates most recently produced the 80th Annual Academy Awards show for ABC. It was Mr. Cates’ 14th occasion producing the Awards, for which he has already garnered numerous Emmy Awards and nominations.
Cates held the position of Dean of the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television (which he founded) from 1990-1998. He continues to teach directing and acting for the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television.
In 2005, Cates was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the Motion Picture category.
Born in New York City, Cates is married to Dr. Judith Reichman. He has four children, two stepchildren and is a grandfather of six.
