Joe Camp, filmmaker behind the ‘Benji’ franchise, dies at 84

Joe Camp, a groundbreaking filmmaker who created the groundbreaking “Benji” franchise, which brought a lovable dog to the masses in a live-action film and became a smash hit, died Friday at his home in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. He was 84 years old. .

The cause was an unspecified illness, his son, director Brandon Camp, said in a statement.

Joe Camp started thinking about directing at the age of eight, but he would first encounter decades of rejection. While attending the University of Mississippi, he attempted to transfer to UCLA’s film school but was rejected. After his studies, Mr. Camp worked in advertising at McCann Erickson’s Houston office and then at Norsworthy-Mercer, a Dallas agency, while also writing unproduced sitcom scripts.

In 1971, Mr. Camp and James Nicodenius, a cinematographer, founded their own production company, Mulberry Square Productions, based in Dallas, far from the traditional centers of the television and film industries, Los Angeles and New York.

The idea for “Benji” came from watching the Disney animated film “Lady and the Tramp” in the late 1960s with his first wife, Carolyn (Hopkins) Camp. Afterward, Mr. Camp observed his own dog’s facial expressions and wondered if a movie could be made starring one in real life, told from the dog’s perspective.

“I went to sleep with the clear concept that dogs will talk if you really pay attention,” Mr. Camp said told The Associated Press 2003.

With little professional experience, Mr. Camp feverishly wrote a script in one go – his first feature film – in which a cute stray dog ​​would save two children from being kidnapped. He raised $500,000 and shot the film in twelve weeks in 1973.

He initially had trouble finding a dog trainer to work on the film, before acclaimed trainer Frank Inn agreed to participate. But back then, no Hollywood studios were interested in distributing it. So Mr. Camp did it independently through his production company.

“Making that first ‘Benji’ movie was like running through a minefield of slammed doors, unplanned disasters, catastrophic mistakes and a noticeable vacuum of money, knowledge and experience,” Mr. Camp said. wrote on his website.

“Benji” premiered in 1974. The film would go on to gross approximately $40 million (about $250 million in today’s dollars) and shattered notions of successful filmmaking. It was one of the top moneymakers of the year, along with ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Towering Inferno’.

Mr. Camp went on to make several other “Benji” films, including 1977’s “For the Love of Benji”; The 80’s Oh heavenly dog, starring Chevy Chase and Jane Seymour; 1987’s ‘Benji the Hunted’ and ‘Benji: Off the Leash!’ from 2004 There was also a CBS children’s show in 1983, “Benji, Zax and the Alien Prince.”

“If you do it well enough, the dollars will take care of themselves,” Camp told the New York Times in 1975.

“Benji” was re-released as a film for Netflix in 2018 and was co-written by Mr. Camp and his son Brandon, who also directed the film.

Mr. Camp, inspired by Walt Disneys vision, insisted on creative control over his films and that no profanity of any kind should occur. He recalled that during negotiations with studios over the distribution of “Benji Off the Leash,” an executive at one of the studios argued that sexual innuendo and smut was something kids increasingly wanted in their programming.

“I said to him, ‘Do you have children?’ ‘Mr. Camp recalled to The Telegram & Gazette in 2004.

After the director said yes, Mr. Camp responded, “Are you giving them what they want or what you think they should have?” And that put a nice end to the conversation.”

Joseph Shelton Camp Jr. was born on April 20, 1939 in St. Louis. His father, Joseph Shelton Camp, was an insurance executive, and mother, Ruth Wilhelmina Mclaulin, a homemaker. Mr. Camp is survived by his wife, Kathleen; his two sons, Joe and Brandon; and his stepchildren, David Wolff, Dylan Wolff and Allegra Wolff. His first wife, Carolyn, whom he married in 1960, died of heart disease in 1997 at the age of 58.

After “Benji: On a leash!” disappointed at the box office, Mr. Camp turned into a new love: horses. He wrote several books, including the 2009 memoir, “The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons from the Herd,” about his journey to become a rider.

But it is the series ‘Benji’ for which Mr. Camp will be remembered most. For decades, he defied Hollywood suits to tell heartwarming stories the way he wanted 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, and anyone can do it.’ If you try hard enough and don’t give up,” Mr Camp said The Associated Press in 2003. “That’s what ‘Benji’ movies are about.”