Milwaukee Film is launching an annual award to be presented to a “luminary Black filmmaker,” and the first honoree will be a Milwaukee native who’s been one of Hollywood’s most versatile and prolific directors for the past half-century.
Michael Schultz, 86, will receive the inaugural Michael Schultz Award at an in-person event at the Oriental Theatre on Sept. 13, Milwaukee Film announced Aug. 13. The award is sponsored by the Brewers Community Foundation.
A trio of Schultz’s best-known movies — “Cooley High,” “Car Wash” and “The Last Dragon” — will be shown at the Oriental that weekend as part of the tribute.
A graduate of Riverside High School, Schultz went to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University, where he was an active member of the Marquette Players. He later went to Princeton University, where he directed his first play, and then worked as an actor and director on Broadway and Off-Broadway.
Starting with the 1972 TV movie “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” Schultz shifted his directing energies to the big and small screen. In addition to “Cooley High,” the influental 1975 coming-of-age drama, and “Car Wash,” the much-loved comedy with an all-star cast of comedians and an earworm of a title song, Schultz’s big-screen résumé ranges from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to Richard Pryor comedies “Which Way Is Up?” and “Bustin’ Loose,” as well as the first movies for Denzel Washington (“Carbon Copy”), Samuel L. Jackson (“Together for Days”) and Sheila E. (“Krush Groove”).
Schultz has been even more prolific on the small screen, directing scores of episodes on shows ranging from “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones” to “Chicago Hope” to “Ally McBeal.” In recent years, he’s been one of the principal directors on the long-running CW series “All American” and “All American: Homecoming.”
Announcing the award, Milwaukee Film Executive Director Susan Kerns said the original idea for the award came from another prolific Black Milwaukee filmmaker, Rubin Whitmore II.
“I was moved by the desire to see this extraordinary Black man from Milwaukee, Michael Schultz, get his flowers for his lifetime of cinematic excellence. In that moment, I also realized this recognition could be the beginning of a greater effort to uplift other extraordinary filmmakers,” Whitmore said in the news release announcing the award.
The lineup for the Michael Schultz tribute weekend (all events at the Oriental Theatre):
Tickets are $13 for the “Last Dragon” and “Car Wash” screenings, and $16 for the “Cooley High” screening and award presentation. Go to mkefilm.org/oriental-theatre for tickets and more information.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Film will honor longtime veteran director Michael Schultz with inaugural award
Reporting by Chris Foran, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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