C. O. Erickson obit

C.O. “Doc” Erickson Dies: Hitchcock & Huston Veteran Who Later Worked On ‘Chinatown’ & ‘Groundhog Day’ Was 93

 

He was not on the list.

C.O. “Doc” Erickson, a production manager on several Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston films who went on to produce such films as Chinatown, Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Groundhog Day, died Wednesday in Las Vegas of heart complications. He was 93.

Born December 17, 1923 in Kankakee, IL, Erickson began his career at Paramount Pictures, serving as production manager on Hitchcock’s 1950s films Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Vertigo. He left the studio to become John Huston’s associate producer on the 1960s film The Misfits, Freud and Reflections in a Golden Eye.

After spending three years supervising film production for Brut Productions in the early ’70s, Erickson would return to the Paramount family, working with Robert Evans as a production manager, unit production manager and/or executive producer on Chinatown, Players, Urban Cowboy and Popeye. Then during the 1980s, he produced such films as Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Lonely Guy, The Wild Life, Project X and Ironweed.

He also had cameo roles in Chinatown and Groundhog Day.

Erickson continued to produced films into the new millennium, including such wide-ranging fare as Groundhog Day (1993), Stuart Saves His Family (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997) and Return to Me (2000). His final film was the World War II Navajo Marines tale Windtalkers (2002).

Survivors include daughter Dawn and her husband, Olivier; sister, Ruth, and her husband, Earl; former wife Gloria; and nieces and nephews.