Aaron Russo

Russo was born in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up in Lawrence, Nassau County, New York, on Long Island,Parker, Jerry. [https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday-profile-of-aaron-russo-part-i/149744369/ "Star Maker Turns Movie Maker"], Newsday, June 5, 1983. Accessed June 20, 2024, via Newspapers.com. "Russo, a Brooklyn native reared in Lawrence, was a novice at management, who managed discotheques in Chicago and Detroit." Russo worked for his family's undergarment business. He played prep football at Lawrence High School.[https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday-profile-of-aaron-russo/149730509/ "Russo moves from Midler to movies"], Newsday, June 5, 1983. Accessed June 20, 2024, via Newspapers.com. "Russo has long had faith in his own instincts, even when others had their doubts At Lawrence High School, he played football, had lots of girlfriends and was no scholar."

In April 1968, Russo opened the nightclub Kinetic Playground in Chicago, Illinois, originally naming it the Electric Theater. He booked numerous prominent rock groups and musicians at the club such as The Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Vanilla Fudge, Rotary Connection, and The Who.{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2007/film/markets-festivals/manager-aaron-russo-dies-at-64-1117970904/|date=August 26, 2007|title=Manager Aaron Russo dies at 64|publisher=Variety}}{{cite web|url=http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2010/03/kinetic-playground-chicago-il-4812-n.html|title=Kinetic Playground, Chicago, IL 4812 N. Clark Street: Performance List 1968-69|date=March 3, 2010|access-date=2011-11-22}}

In addition to owning his own nightclub, Russo managed several musical acts throughout the 1970s including The Manhattan Transfer and Bette Midler.{{Cite web|url=http://www.betteontheboards.com/boards/magazine-20.htm|title=Bette Midler in "The Rose"|access-date=August 24, 2007|publisher=Bette on the Boards|date=November 1979|author=Mahoney, John C.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807045751/http://www.betteontheboards.com/boards/magazine-20.htm|archive-date=August 7, 2007|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}

Russo then moved into producing and directing movies, six of them receiving Academy Award nominations and two receiving Golden Globe Award nominations.{{Cite web|url=http://www.goldenglobes.org/browse/member/28213|title=Aaron Russo|publisher=Hollywood Foreign Press Association|access-date=February 11, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202062841/http://www.goldenglobes.org/browse/member/28213|archive-date=December 2, 2008|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}} His first producing credit was for Midler's Clams on the Half-Shell Revue. Other notable feature films he produced include The Rose (1979), starring Midler, and also Trading Places (1983), starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. His final film would be America: Freedom to Fascism, a political documentary critical of the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve System and warning about the coming of the New World Order.

In 1987, Aaron Russo had set up his own entertainment company, Aaron Russo Entertainment with self-financing so they would not have to disclose the participants' contributions to the production kitty, and all of the ARE productions were gone to Orion Pictures for the U.S. and Canada theatrical rights. He then named Irwin Russo as senior vice president of the Los Angeles-based Aaron Russo Films and the company had set up feature projects by 1988, with record division Aaron Russo Films and Aaron Russo Television set to follow.{{Cite news |last=Silverman |first=Mark |date=1987-04-29 |title=Aaron Russo Sets Up N.Y.-Based Operation To Produce Features; TV, Record Divisions To Follow |pages=3, 34 |work=Variety}}

Russo became involved in political issues in the mid-1990s when he produced and starred in the documentary entitled Mad As Hell in which he criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the federal government's War on Drugs, the concept of a National Identity Card, and government regulation of alternative medicine.{{cite news |title=Vengeful investor and cheating wife testify in trial |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pellicano/vengeful-investor-and-cheating-wife-testify-in-trial-idUSN0230401020080402 |work=Reuters}}

In 1998, Russo took his political interests to a higher level, running for governor of the state of Nevada as a Republican. Placing second in the Republican primary with 26% of the vote to candidate Kenny Guinn, Russo later endorsed the Democratic nominee, then-Las Vegas mayor Jan Laverty Jones, who would eventually lose to Guinn.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} Russo was planning to run again for Nevada governor in 2002 as either an independent or Libertarian, but was sidelined by cancer.

In January 2004, Russo declared his candidacy for the President of the United States initially as an independent, but then as a Libertarian. At the Libertarian National Convention in May 2004, Russo received 258 votes to Michael Badnarik's 256 votes and Gary Nolan's 246 votes, short of the majority required to receive the presidential nomination. Russo would eventually lose the nomination on the convention's third and final ballot to Badnarik by a vote of 423–344.

File:Aaron Russo Gold Commemorative Memorial Piece.jpg

On August 24, 2007, Russo died at the age of 64 of cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-aug-26-me-russo26-story.html Former Bette Midler manager and film producer dies at 64] The Associated Press. August 26, 2007.

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.

;As director

;As an actor

;Music department

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060327023459/http://www.freedomtofascism.com/ America: Freedom to Fascism, Russo's last film]
• {{C-SPAN|84809}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160925032502/http://www.arm.iwarrior.net/ Virtual Memorial]
• {{IMDb name|0751567}}

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Category:1943 births

Category:2007 deaths

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:Activists from New York (state)

Category:American documentary filmmakers

Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople

Category:American libertarians

Category:American people of Jewish descent

Category:American people of Italian descent

Category:Deaths from cancer in California

Category:Filmmakers from Brooklyn

Category:Film producers from New York (state)

Category:Lawrence High School (Cedarhurst, New York) alumni

Category:Nevada Libertarians

Category:Nevada Republicans

Category:People from the Las Vegas Valley

Category:People from Lawrence, Nassau County, New York