That's my pal Michael Hoey on the left, posing with actress Michele Carey and some guy named Elvis Something on the set of Live A Little, Love A Little. Michael wrote that movie and one other for Mr. Presley, and he wrote, produced, directed and/or edited many other motion pictures and television shows in a very long, successful career.
He was born in London in 1934, the son of English actor Dennis Hoey, who played the clueless Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes pictures which starred Basil Rathbone in the title role. That was how his family happened to move to Hollywood and there, he broke into the business as a film editor, cutting for — among many other famous directors — George Cukor, John Ford and Fred Zinnemann. From there, it was on to producing and writing and directing and he didn't stop working for the longest time. Late in his career, he went back to editing for the TV series, Fame, and scored two Emmy nominations for that work.
I met Michael when we were on a Writers Guild strike. I forget which one…there have been so many. But we were on a planning committee together and we wound up becoming friends and lunching together after the strike, discussing a mutual project that, alas, never happened. I forget if it was because he got too busy with work or I did but for me, the project was secondary to hanging out with Mike and hearing of his experiences. He'd worked with everyone. He knew everybody. He knew everything there was to know about putting together a movie or a television show.
Michael died last Sunday of cancer at the age of 79. He was a good man with a great sense of humor.