![]() Instead, he served on the board of Harrod’s and Turnbull & Asser, both owned by his father. Though he received an executive producer credit on Steven Spielberg’s Hook, his work on that film extended only as far as selling the rights to Peter Pan (which he bought from the hospital to which original author J.M. Fayed was making a name for himself in Hollywood, working as a producer on films including F/X, Chariots of Fire, and The Scarlet Letter.Īfter F/X, Fayed produced just two more films: an F/X sequel and The Scarlet Letter. Let me put it this way: I’ve worked with many more people who are of less substance and had less understanding of the storytelling they were doing.”ĭodi Fayed and actress Traci Lind in Los Angeles in 1991. “He was the ultimate go-between facilitator,” Peyser says. ![]() He had lots of friends and lots of money, but I can’t say much about him as a producer.” I always thought of him as sweet but naïve playboy under the thumb of his father. Dodi came in with money and got the title, but I don’t know if he ever did the day-to-day work. “When I think of producers, they’re people who knew what they were doing from the ground up. ![]() “Dodi had other things on his mind than developing a film career for himself, of which girls and drugs rated pretty highly-and not necessarily in that order,” he said.Īnother former collaborator agreed with Puttnam’s claim that Fayed’s career was “hopeless.” “Dodi was a lovely guy, but he knew as much about producing as my housekeeper,” this person tells T&C. The film, which Fayed produced, won an Academy Award for Best Picture.Ĭhariots of Fire producer David Puttnam recalled in 2012 that he threw the executive producer off the set for allegedly giving the cast cocaine. Throughout his career as a producer, Fayed remained an involved, if slightly ineffectual, presence.ĭodi Fayed and actress Cathy Lee Crosby at the 1982 premiere of Chariots of Fire in Beverly Hills. “He was in love with and involved with movies since he was a child.”īut Allied Stars would only see a handful of films released over the course of Fayed’s life (interestingly, Fayed bought the rights to Stephen King’s Firestarter in galley proofs for $1 million before Universal acquired the project). “Allied Stars was Dodi’s idea,” Mohammed Al-Fayed, Dodi's father, told Variety in 2003. Chariots of Fire earned seven Academy Award nominations, taking home four, including Best Picture. Funded by his father, the company’s second production was a major success. He succeeded, to a degree, until the circumstances of his death eradicated what he had accomplished himself.īorn April 17, 1955, Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Mena’em Fayed's peripatetic life of night clubs, fast cars and short-lived employment was supposed to end with the creation of production company Allied Stars Ltd. Always obsessed with movies, Fayed created a life and career for himself in Los Angeles. Born into wealth, Fayed was nevertheless attempting to carve out a name for himself separate from his family’s and apart from his growing reputation as a playboy. Fayed won an Oscar for his work producing the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.į/X was Fayed’s third film as chief executive of the production company Allied Stars, but he was already a Hollywood player thanks to his Oscar win for Best Picture with his second project, Chariots of Fire. “But it was weird that a bodyguard created trouble for his client by having a temper.” Eleven years later, another man in Fayed’s employ would create trouble again, with tragic results.ĭodi Fayed, pictured here in 1997, was the son of a billionaire and the boyfriend of a princess, but for a time he tried to make his own name as a producer in Hollywood-and he wasn’t bad at it. “We found him and resolved the situation,” Peyser says. ![]() In the melee, the bus driver was either knocked down or fell, and Fayed’s bodyguard fled the scene while the police were called. “And it came to, I believe, some fisticuffs.” “It led to a shouting match between the bodyguard, who was talking to the bus driver, who didn’t like his guff,” Peyser says. Michael Peyser, who worked on the film with Fayed, recalls one of Fayed’s bodyguards getting into an altercation with a bus driver after the bus got too close to Fayed’s car. The first day of location filming for F/X in 1985 found an eerie foreshadowing unfolding for producer Dodi Fayed. To mark the final season of The Crown, which details the final days of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, we're resharing this story from last year about Dodi's career in Hollywood. ![]()
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