Joe Camp, Filmmaker Behind ‘Benji’ Franchise, Dies at 84

Joe Camp, a pioneering filmmaker who created a groundbreaking franchise together with his “Benji” motion pictures, which introduced a lovable live-action canine to the lots and have become a smash success, died on Friday at his dwelling in Bell Buckle, Tenn. He was 84.

His son the director Brandon Camp introduced the dying in an announcement. He mentioned his father died “following a long illness” however offered no different particulars.

Joe Camp started eager about directing when he was as younger as 8 years outdated, however he would first encounter a long time of rejections. While attending the University of Mississippi, he tried to switch to U.C.L.A.’s movie faculty, solely to be turned down. After faculty, he dabbled in promoting on the Houston workplace of McCann Erickson after which at Norsworthy‐Mercer, an company in Dallas, whereas writing unproduced sitcom scripts on the facet.

In 1971, Mr. Camp and James Nicodemus, a cinematographer, fashioned their very own manufacturing firm, Mulberry Square Productions, which was primarily based in Dallas, removed from the standard hubs of the tv and movie business, Los Angeles and New York.

The concept for “Benji” got here to Mr. Camp whereas he was watching the animated Disney function movie “Lady and the Tramp” (1955) within the late Sixties together with his first spouse, Carolyn (Hopkins) Camp. Afterward, Mr. Camp noticed his personal canine’s facial expressions and puzzled if a film might be made starring a real-life canine and instructed from the canine’s perspective.

“I went to sleep with the distinct concept that dogs do talk if you’re really paying attention,” Mr. Camp instructed The Associated Press in 2003.

With little skilled expertise, Mr. Camp feverishly got here up with a script in a single sitting — his first feature-length screenplay — through which an lovable stray canine would save two youngsters from a kidnapping. He raised $500,000 and shot the movie in 12 weeks in 1973.

He initially had bother discovering a canine coach who would work on the movie earlier than the celebrated coach Frank Inn agreed to participate. But no Hollywood studios had been all in favour of distributing it. So Mr. Camp did it independently by means of his manufacturing firm.

“Getting that first ‘Benji’ movie made was like careening through a minefield of slammed doors, unplanned disasters, catastrophic mistakes, and a noticeable vacuum of money, knowledge and experience,” Mr. Camp wrote on his web site.

”Benji” premiered in 1974. It would go on to gross round $40 million — roughly $250 million in at this time’s {dollars} — and to shatter perceptions about learn how to make profitable movies. It was one of many three high cash makers of the 12 months, just under “Jaws” and “The Towering Inferno.”

Mr. Camp went on to make a number of different “Benji” movies, together with “For the Love of Benji” (1977), “Oh Heavenly Dog” (1980), which starred Chevy Chase and Jane Seymour; “Benji the Hunted” (1987) and “Benji: Off the Leash!” (2004). There was additionally a CBS youngsters’s present in 1983, “Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince.”

“By doing it well enough, the dollars will take care of themselves,” Mr. Camp instructed The New York Times in 1975.

“Benji” was rebooted as a 2018 Nexis movie, written by Mr. Camp and his son Brandon, who additionally directed it.

Mr. Camp, impressed by Walt Disney’s imaginative and prescient, insisted on inventive management over his movies and in addition insisted that they include no profanity of any kind. He recalled that in negotiations about distributing “Benji: Off the Leash!,” an govt from one of many studios made the case that sexual innuendos and smut had been one thing youngsters more and more needed of their programming.

“I said to him, ‘Do you have kids?’” Mr. Camp mentioned in an interview with The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass., in 2004.

After the chief mentioned sure, Mr. Camp recalled, he responded: “‘Do you give them what they want or what you think they ought to have?’ And that pretty well ended the conversation.”

Joseph Shelton Camp Jr. was born on April 20, 1939, in St. Louis. His father was an insurance coverage govt; his mom, Ruth Wilhelmina (Mclaulin) Camp, ran the family.

In addition to his son Brandon, Mr. Camp is survived by his spouse, Kathleen; one other son, Joe; and his stepchildren, David Wolff, Dylan Wolff and Allegra Wolff. His first spouse, Carolyn, whom he married in 1960, died of a coronary heart dysfunction in 1997 at age 58.

After “Benji: Off the Leash!” was a disappointment on the field workplace, Mr. Camp turned to a brand new love: horses. He wrote a number of books, together with a 2009 memoir, “The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons From the Herd,” about his journey into turning into a horseman.

But it’s the “Benji” collection for which Mr. Camp will most be remembered. For a long time, he defied Hollywood fits to inform heartwarming tales the best way he needed to.

“The whole point of it is to say, ‘If this dog can do it, if I can do it, this idiot from the sticks of the South can do it, anyone can do it. If you try hard enough and you don’t give up,’” Mr. Camp told The Associated Press in 2003. “That’s what ‘Benji’ movies are all about.”