Tony Seiniger: Advertising designer
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
I’ve been going through edit after edit of extensive material filmed over the years, and now find myself able to finally fill in some of the narrative “gaps” through some new, additional interviews.
One such person is TONY SEINIGER. Like Mike Salisbury, Spiros Angelikas, and Merv Bloch (all of whom I’m proud to say are featured in our film!), Seiniger is a titan in motion picture marketing.
Through his advertising agency, Seiniger Advertising, he has been involved in over 2,500 major film campaigns, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Breakfast Club, Total Recall, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and such Spielberg productions as Jaws, Poltergeist, and Schindler’s List. In 1998, Seiniger was honored with a Key Art Lifetime Achievement Award.
I’d heard Seiniger’s name dropped repeatedly over the years in relation to Amsel, especially by the New York based artists I interviewed. I was ultimately referred to him by Dylan Struzan, and had the pleasure of meeting his son, Thomas, at the Muzeo poster exhibit last year.
Like my interview with artist Robert Risko, I had preferred to interview Seiniger personally, but with my school schedule, and the prohibitive travel costs involved, face to face filming just wasn’t feasible. And so I proposed the remote interview option, to which Seiniger kindly agreed.
Technically, the final result came off serviceably. But the content was priceless.
Case in point: There’s a tragicomic anecdote about Amsel, which I first read in one of the retrospective books on Drew Struzan’s work. Struzan said there was a marketing director who, when tasked by a director to commission Richard Amsel for a movie poster, was forced to deliver sad tidings: “Amsel’s dead.”
And the filmmaker’s unflinching reply? “Offer him more money!”
For years, I just assumed the story was a satirical play on the usual Hollywood glibness. But Seiniger explained the tale was, remarkably, rooted in truth.
Amsel had done the poster for Robert Benton’s caper comedy, The Late Show (1977) featuring Lily Tomlin and Art Carney. The director greatly admired Amsel’s work, so when it came time to market another comedy ten years later – the less successful Nadine (1987) – Benton initially wanted Amsel for the job.
It was Seiniger who told Benton that Amsel had died. And yes, Benton actually replied with the offer him more money quip.
There was another such lost opportunity, Seiniger shared, this time for Roman Polanski. The director wanted Amsel, who had already created a memorable poster for his 1974 classic Chinatown, to repeat their success for his next film. But by 1986, Amsel was gone, and Polanski’s new film – Pirates, starring (a misguidedly cast) Walter Matthau – became an infamous $40 million commercial and critical disaster.
Seiniger believes it might have been more successful (or at least, less unsuccessful) had Amsel lived to create the poster.
I sincerely wish to thank Mr. Seiniger for his time and insight. For more about his work and career, visit:
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