Robert Ozn
Encyclopedia
Robert Ozn New York City
born producer, screenwriter recording artist and actor, best known for being the vocal half of 80s synth pop duo EBN-OZN solo act, Dada Nada
, and for his later work as co-producer and co-writer with Colin Greene of the human-rights themed feature film I Witness
starring Jeff Daniels
, James Spader
and Portia DeRossi. Judge for the Writers Guild of America Awards 2005, 2006, 2007 (Long form).
Children's Chorus, appearing in numerous productions in both the "Old Met" and the "New Met" at Lincoln Center. At the age of 16, he was the youngest student ever to receive a Key Scholarship award from Herbert Berghof acting school (HB Studio
) in Greenwich Village. At 17, he was accepted as a voice and theater major at the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied with Norwegian Bass/Baritone Roy Samuelson of the New York City Opera
.
As a teenager , he went on the road with Doc Severinsen
and The Tonight Show
band, working with Lou Tabackin, Ed Shaughnessy, Snookie Young, Ross Tompkins and Buddy Rich
.
His first significant musical theatre role was that of Hero in a tour of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
with Zero Mostel
. Shortly after, he created the role of Henry Anderson in the original Broadway cast of Shenandoah
starring John Cullum
(album: Atlantic Records), which originally premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House. Subsequent acting work: leads in Vagabond Stars a pre-Broadway piece at the Berkshire Theater Festival written by Alan Poul
, Pirates of Penzance with Karla DeVito
, and understudying Gary Sinise
in the LA company of Sam Shepard
's Curse of the Starving Class
.
However, it was not until his supporting lead in a small National Endowment for the Arts short film "No Regrets" directed by Ruth Charny and produced by Ellen Sherman (see Dateline NBC) and his subsequent lead in the Broadway rock musical Marlowe along with Patrick Jude and Lisa Mordente
that he came to the attention of the New York music industry, in particular rock impresario Ron Delsner, who encouraged him to begin his own recording career.
As a production Marlowe opened to disastrous reviews for the writers, producers and director, but the critics gave nods to Jude, Rosen and Mordente, who received a Tony nomination for Best Supporting actress. So, despite itself, the play remained lit.
) introduced Rosen to Ned Liben, then the owner of New York's Sundragon Recording Studios, and a music prodigy in his own right. Liben had built his first professional studio at the age of 14 and by the time he met Rosen had worked with Jimi Hendrix
, The Talking Heads and a host of New York's rockers.
Both Greenwich Village born and raised, the two shared a passion for the rock, R&B, rap, and Latin music played in the hedonistic underground Manhattan club scene of the pre-AIDS early 80s, which was a racially and sexuality-mixed world of disparate tastes and styles. Places like The Loft
, The Garage
, Area
, Save the Robots
, Les Jardin, Limelight
gave birth to a number of dance oriented artists that that went on to greater fame such as Madonna
and Jellybean Benitez.
Their initial collaboration "AEIOU Sometimes Y" was recorded in 1981, (released 1983) the first American record to ever be completely executed on a computer (a Fairlight CMI
). First played in public by DJ Afrika Bambatta for a black and gay crowd at The Roxy
before it was released, "AEIOU" was a bizarre mix of rap, spoken word, digital sampling, rock and R&B dance music. Liben and Rosen cut their own 12-inch dance single which was instantly signed by Arista Records in London by A&R wunderkind Simon Potts and in New York by Elektra Records' President Bob Kraznow before the band even had name. As the story goes, the two could not agree and as a joke they decided to strike the first letters from each of their last names and pull out the vowels. Later in an interview with MTV V.J., Martha Quinn, OZN revealed their legal names and quipped they'd changed them "because Liben-Rosen sounded too much like a doctor's office". Angry that OZN had let the cat out of the bag, Elektra Records demanded that the two never use their given names in public again. Their given names were stricken from subsequent label credits and press releases, and from then on, their names stuck.
Besides common musical interests, they shared a passion for business and had over three decades of work in the arts between them, a remarkable number for two 20-something artists. So, they decided early on that EBN-OZN would produce finished product not demos, which in its day was almost unheard of for unknowns. In keeping with their business concept, the two artists wrote, produced, performed and most importantly owned the master recordings and copyrights and publishing of their material prior to ever getting their deals done. More unusual, OZN wrote and developed the production concepts for their videos. EBN-OZN was not just a band, it was a self-contained artistic business.
Nothing bore out the chemistry between EBN and OZN more than their self-produced MTV smash video for "AEIOU Sometimes Y." Awarded an LA Times Top 10 of the Year pick, and in that new era of music videos gave them international stardom on the club circuit.
Darlings of the music press, they were lauded with extraordinary platitudes: Playboy magazine, June 1984 "OZN. . . the best white rapper alive." Billboard magazine May 1984: "The Steely Dan
of the 80s" New York Post
, May 1981 "EBN - New York's answer to Tomas Dolby." Boston Globe July 1985 ". . . last night watching OZN live proves he is the ultimate rock sex symbol. . ."
Their first album "Feeling Cavalier," released by Elektra in 1984, went Top 20 on the College Radio Chart and their second single, "Bag Lady" (I Wonder) went Top 40 on the Billboard Club Chart and charted Top 10 Club internationally. The video for Bag Lady starred Imogene Coca as the Bag Lady and like AEIOU, enjoyed a worldwide television and club play.
After the duo's split up in 1985, EBN went on to run his exclusive SOHO studio working with Scritti Politti
and Arif Mardin
, while OZN moved to Los Angeles and started his own label, One Voice Records and his own solo act, "Dada Nada
."
Dada Nada got a distribution deal with Polydor/UK and he distributed it himself in North America, taking his business chops into label ownership, by managing his own financing, marketing and promotion and landing two Top 5 Billboard Charting dance hits, "Haunted House" and "Deep Love." Continuing to be a ground breaker, his was the first white House record and Hip House (rap and house) record to ever crack the Top 5 in the United States (MTV, Music News, February 1990). Dada Nada enjoyed excellent press coverage in the US and London. "Robert Ozn's raps kicks Falco
's ass right off the dance floor." (The Beat December 1989) "Real songwriting and great vocals . . . more than just hot beats" (The Face Magazine May 1990).
Ozn's collaborators on Dada Nada tracks included Bad Boy Bill
, David Morales
, Frankie Knuckles
, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, Steve Wight (now an associate professor of recording arts at Cal State), and Bob Greenberg. Dada Nada's mix of rap and sung vocals (both by Ozn) placed him in the limelight with US and international club DJs but at odds with mainstream American record executives who could not grasp a white front man who rapped and sang a hybrid of club, hip hop and pop. Recorded in 1990, Dada Nada proved to be ahead of its time, as rapped verses and sung choruses became the norm in American radio pop by the turn of the century.
OZN's last public appearance was the 1990 U.S. Dada Nada tour, in which he suffered a gang-related shooting incident during a show in Chicago.
EBN died in 1998 of a heart attack in Soho, New York. He is survived by his wife Sallie Moore Liben and son Max Liben.
He then went to work for Richard Gladstein at Miramax as his script analyst where he 'read' Quentin Tarantino
's Pulp Fiction
and worked as a freelance creative executive much of the Miramax's European material as well as Dimension Films' horror faire. He also worked for talent agency CAA, producer Paula Weinstein and directors Louis Malle
, Sydney Pollack
and James Cameron
's Lightstorm Entertainment.
Becoming a producer/writer, along with partner Colin Greene, he sold an event film to Mario Kassar
at Paramount, "Storm Warning." (see Hollywood Reporter), a $100+ million feature, which remains unproduced.
Ozn's next project was as executive producer along with Ted Danson
of Bill Russell
's West End play "Elegies for Punks and Raging Queens" an AIDS related drama, optioned by Danson's Paramount based company, Anasazi Productions. Attached wereMichael Douglas
, Whoopi Goldberg
, Richard Gere
, Patrick Stewart
, Jason Priestley
, and the late Elizabeth Taylor
, but unfortunately the piece was never made.
Shortly thereafter, Ozn and Greene sold "God's Witness" to Promark Entertainment (producer David Bixler (co-producer Julia Verdin)exec producers Jonathan Kramer
and aul de Souza] director Rowdy Herrington
). The name was changed to I Witness
and the $8.5 million piece attracted Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia DeRossi. Shot in Puerto Rico and Mexico, it received critical acclaim in Latin America and Europe, due to its political content and actors' performances, but remained largely ignored in the US until Universal purchased the rights in 2007 and released the DVD.
Robert Ozn withdrew from the arts and entertainment industry in 2003 to raise (in concert with his ex-wife) his stepchildren after his divorce. He served as a judge for the Writers Guild of America Awards in 2005, 2006, and 2007 (Long form).
Ozn returned to the film business in 2009, producing along with Mickey Curbishley and Richard Luckett, a documentary about the life of British aristocrat Micky Burn
, who was decorated for valor for his part in the British attack on the Nazi naval base at St-Nazaire, France,. He wrote a feature for the Sy Fy Channel, "Earth's Final Hours," and his TV pilot adaptation of his unpublished novel, Record Men, was nominated as a runner up finalist in the 2011 UCLA Extension TV Writer's Program Competition. He lives in Vancouver, Canada and Los Angeles, California.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
born producer, screenwriter recording artist and actor, best known for being the vocal half of 80s synth pop duo EBN-OZN solo act, Dada Nada
Dada Nada
Dada Nada - House Music and Hip House act which served as the moniker for Robert Ozn after the breakup of New York art rock act EBN-OZN, an MTV darling in the mid 80s. Dada Nada had two American Billboard Top 5 Club records in 1989 and 1990: Haunted House and Deep Love, plus additional charted...
, and for his later work as co-producer and co-writer with Colin Greene of the human-rights themed feature film I Witness
I Witness
I Witness is an action film starring Jeff Daniels and James Spader. It was released in the United States on February 1, 2003.-Plot:Human rights activist James Rhodes arrives in Tijuana to help oversee local union elections. While there, he becomes embroiled in a mass murder at what appears to be a...
starring Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...
, James Spader
James Spader
James Todd Spader is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in movies such as Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Crash, Stargate, and Secretary...
and Portia DeRossi. Judge for the Writers Guild of America Awards 2005, 2006, 2007 (Long form).
Early life and career
As a child singing prodigy, he was a member of the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
Children's Chorus, appearing in numerous productions in both the "Old Met" and the "New Met" at Lincoln Center. At the age of 16, he was the youngest student ever to receive a Key Scholarship award from Herbert Berghof acting school (HB Studio
HB Studio
Founded in 1945 by Herbert Berghof, the HB Studio is a school that offers professional training in the performing arts. Located in Greenwich Village in New York City, its curriculum includes classes in a variety of areas, including acting, directing, playwrighting, screenwriting, musical theatre,...
) in Greenwich Village. At 17, he was accepted as a voice and theater major at the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied with Norwegian Bass/Baritone Roy Samuelson of the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
.
As a teenager , he went on the road with Doc Severinsen
Doc Severinsen
Carl Hilding "Doc" Severinsen is an American pop and jazz trumpeter. He is best known for leading the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.-Early life:...
and The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
band, working with Lou Tabackin, Ed Shaughnessy, Snookie Young, Ross Tompkins and Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich
Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...
.
His first significant musical theatre role was that of Hero in a tour of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart....
with Zero Mostel
Zero Mostel
Samuel Joel “Zero” Mostel was an American actor of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version...
. Shortly after, he created the role of Henry Anderson in the original Broadway cast of Shenandoah
Shenandoah (musical)
Shenandoah is a musical that was written in 1975 with music by Gary Geld, lyrics by Peter Udell, and a book by Udell, Philip Rose and James Lee Barrett, based on Barrett's original screenplay for the 1965 film Shenandoah.-Productions:...
starring John Cullum
John Cullum
John Cullum is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in many stage musicals and dramas, including On the Twentieth Century and Shenandoah , winning the Tony Awards for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for each...
(album: Atlantic Records), which originally premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House. Subsequent acting work: leads in Vagabond Stars a pre-Broadway piece at the Berkshire Theater Festival written by Alan Poul
Alan Poul
Alan Mark Poul is an American film and television producer and director.-Career:Poul served as executive producer for the HBO original series, Six Feet Under, on which he made his directing debut...
, Pirates of Penzance with Karla DeVito
Karla DeVito
Karla DeVito is an American singer, actress and voice artist.DeVito and her three brothers were raised by a very musical mother, Vivienne, who, when not working to support the family, was always singing at home...
, and understudying Gary Sinise
Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
in the LA company of Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
's Curse of the Starving Class
Curse of the Starving Class
Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard which, along with Buried Child, A Lie of the Mind and True West, comprises the playwright's family tragedies.-Production history:...
.
However, it was not until his supporting lead in a small National Endowment for the Arts short film "No Regrets" directed by Ruth Charny and produced by Ellen Sherman (see Dateline NBC) and his subsequent lead in the Broadway rock musical Marlowe along with Patrick Jude and Lisa Mordente
Lisa Mordente
Lisa Mordente is an American actress, singer, and dancer.Born in New Hyde Park, New York to choreographer and television director Tony Mordente and actress/dancer Chita Rivera , Mordente made her Broadway debut opposite Alexis Smith in the short-lived 1978 musical...
that he came to the attention of the New York music industry, in particular rock impresario Ron Delsner, who encouraged him to begin his own recording career.
As a production Marlowe opened to disastrous reviews for the writers, producers and director, but the critics gave nods to Jude, Rosen and Mordente, who received a Tony nomination for Best Supporting actress. So, despite itself, the play remained lit.
EBN-OZN and DADA NADA
Austin, Texas-based producer Jay Aaron Podolnick (see [VillaMuse.com] and Eric JohnsonEric Johnson
Eric Johnson is an American guitarist. Though he is best known for his success in the instrumental rock format, Johnson regularly incorporates jazz, fusion, gospel and country and western music into his recordings...
) introduced Rosen to Ned Liben, then the owner of New York's Sundragon Recording Studios, and a music prodigy in his own right. Liben had built his first professional studio at the age of 14 and by the time he met Rosen had worked with Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, The Talking Heads and a host of New York's rockers.
Both Greenwich Village born and raised, the two shared a passion for the rock, R&B, rap, and Latin music played in the hedonistic underground Manhattan club scene of the pre-AIDS early 80s, which was a racially and sexuality-mixed world of disparate tastes and styles. Places like The Loft
The Loft
The Loft is the location for the first underground dance party that was created by David Mancuso on February 14, 1970 in New York. Since then, the term The Loft has come to represent Mancuso's own version of a non-commercial party where no alcohol, food, or beverages are sold...
, The Garage
The Garage
The Garage may refer to:Places*The Garage , a small shopping center located in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts*The Garage , a large night club located in Glasgow, Scotland...
, Area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
, Save the Robots
Save the Robots
Save the Robots was an underground after hours club in New York City's East Village neighborhood. "Robots," as the venue was popularly known, operated quasi-legally from a nondescript storefront and basement at 25 Avenue B, between East 2nd and 3rd Streets, from 1983 until mid-1984, when the club...
, Les Jardin, Limelight
Limelight
Limelight is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of quicklime , which can be heated to 2572 °C before melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and...
gave birth to a number of dance oriented artists that that went on to greater fame such as Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
and Jellybean Benitez.
Their initial collaboration "AEIOU Sometimes Y" was recorded in 1981, (released 1983) the first American record to ever be completely executed on a computer (a Fairlight CMI
Fairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...
). First played in public by DJ Afrika Bambatta for a black and gay crowd at The Roxy
Roxy
-Brands:* Roxy , women's brand of clothing, accessories, and snowboards by Quiksilver company for surfing* The Roxy Theatre, music venue in Los Angeles & online source for music, arts, culture, and more.-Names:...
before it was released, "AEIOU" was a bizarre mix of rap, spoken word, digital sampling, rock and R&B dance music. Liben and Rosen cut their own 12-inch dance single which was instantly signed by Arista Records in London by A&R wunderkind Simon Potts and in New York by Elektra Records' President Bob Kraznow before the band even had name. As the story goes, the two could not agree and as a joke they decided to strike the first letters from each of their last names and pull out the vowels. Later in an interview with MTV V.J., Martha Quinn, OZN revealed their legal names and quipped they'd changed them "because Liben-Rosen sounded too much like a doctor's office". Angry that OZN had let the cat out of the bag, Elektra Records demanded that the two never use their given names in public again. Their given names were stricken from subsequent label credits and press releases, and from then on, their names stuck.
Besides common musical interests, they shared a passion for business and had over three decades of work in the arts between them, a remarkable number for two 20-something artists. So, they decided early on that EBN-OZN would produce finished product not demos, which in its day was almost unheard of for unknowns. In keeping with their business concept, the two artists wrote, produced, performed and most importantly owned the master recordings and copyrights and publishing of their material prior to ever getting their deals done. More unusual, OZN wrote and developed the production concepts for their videos. EBN-OZN was not just a band, it was a self-contained artistic business.
Nothing bore out the chemistry between EBN and OZN more than their self-produced MTV smash video for "AEIOU Sometimes Y." Awarded an LA Times Top 10 of the Year pick, and in that new era of music videos gave them international stardom on the club circuit.
Darlings of the music press, they were lauded with extraordinary platitudes: Playboy magazine, June 1984 "OZN. . . the best white rapper alive." Billboard magazine May 1984: "The Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
of the 80s" New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, May 1981 "EBN - New York's answer to Tomas Dolby." Boston Globe July 1985 ". . . last night watching OZN live proves he is the ultimate rock sex symbol. . ."
Their first album "Feeling Cavalier," released by Elektra in 1984, went Top 20 on the College Radio Chart and their second single, "Bag Lady" (I Wonder) went Top 40 on the Billboard Club Chart and charted Top 10 Club internationally. The video for Bag Lady starred Imogene Coca as the Bag Lady and like AEIOU, enjoyed a worldwide television and club play.
After the duo's split up in 1985, EBN went on to run his exclusive SOHO studio working with Scritti Politti
Scritti Politti
Scritti Politti are a British band, originally formed in 1977 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Although there have been various changes to the line-up, Cardiff-born singer-songwriter Green Gartside was the founding member of the band and the only member to have remained throughout the group's...
and Arif Mardin
Arif Mardin
Arif Mardin was a Turkish-American music producer, who worked with hundreds of artists across many different styles of music, including jazz, rock, soul, disco, and country...
, while OZN moved to Los Angeles and started his own label, One Voice Records and his own solo act, "Dada Nada
Dada Nada
Dada Nada - House Music and Hip House act which served as the moniker for Robert Ozn after the breakup of New York art rock act EBN-OZN, an MTV darling in the mid 80s. Dada Nada had two American Billboard Top 5 Club records in 1989 and 1990: Haunted House and Deep Love, plus additional charted...
."
Dada Nada got a distribution deal with Polydor/UK and he distributed it himself in North America, taking his business chops into label ownership, by managing his own financing, marketing and promotion and landing two Top 5 Billboard Charting dance hits, "Haunted House" and "Deep Love." Continuing to be a ground breaker, his was the first white House record and Hip House (rap and house) record to ever crack the Top 5 in the United States (MTV, Music News, February 1990). Dada Nada enjoyed excellent press coverage in the US and London. "Robert Ozn's raps kicks Falco
Falco (musician)
Johann Hölzel , better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper. He had several international hits: "Der Kommissar", "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home " and posthumously, "Out Of The Dark"...
's ass right off the dance floor." (The Beat December 1989) "Real songwriting and great vocals . . . more than just hot beats" (The Face Magazine May 1990).
Ozn's collaborators on Dada Nada tracks included Bad Boy Bill
Bad Boy Bill
Bad Boy Bill is a DJ from Chicago, Illinois, U.S.. He plays an assortment of house music.Bad Boy Bill began his DJ career in 1985 during the Chicago House music movement of the mid and late 80's working with Mike "Hitman" Wilson and Julian "Jumpin" Perez of the then WBMX dj mixing team known as...
, David Morales
David Morales
David Morales is an internationally acclaimed Grammy-winning house music DJ and producer. In addition to his production and DJ work, Morales is one of the most prolific remixers of all time, transforming many pop music songs into club-friendly dance tracks...
, Frankie Knuckles
Frankie Knuckles
Frankie Knuckles is an American DJ, record producer and remix artist. He played an important role in developing house music as a Chicago DJ in the 1980s and he helped to popularize house music in the 1990s, with his work as a producer and remixer...
, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, Steve Wight (now an associate professor of recording arts at Cal State), and Bob Greenberg. Dada Nada's mix of rap and sung vocals (both by Ozn) placed him in the limelight with US and international club DJs but at odds with mainstream American record executives who could not grasp a white front man who rapped and sang a hybrid of club, hip hop and pop. Recorded in 1990, Dada Nada proved to be ahead of its time, as rapped verses and sung choruses became the norm in American radio pop by the turn of the century.
OZN's last public appearance was the 1990 U.S. Dada Nada tour, in which he suffered a gang-related shooting incident during a show in Chicago.
EBN died in 1998 of a heart attack in Soho, New York. He is survived by his wife Sallie Moore Liben and son Max Liben.
Film Industry Career
Ozn went on to a producing and screenwriting career in the film business, where, in a trade-off for learning the production side of the industry, his first job was working for free for Oliver Stone and Janet Yang's Ixtlan Films. There, he became the company's first-call reader for A-list material.He then went to work for Richard Gladstein at Miramax as his script analyst where he 'read' Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction (film)
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
and worked as a freelance creative executive much of the Miramax's European material as well as Dimension Films' horror faire. He also worked for talent agency CAA, producer Paula Weinstein and directors Louis Malle
Louis Malle
Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...
, Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
and James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
's Lightstorm Entertainment.
Becoming a producer/writer, along with partner Colin Greene, he sold an event film to Mario Kassar
Mario Kassar
Mario F. Kassar is a film producer and industry executive whose projects are frequently in association with Andrew G. Vajna.Kassar was born in Beirut, Lebanon. Working for Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, he was executive producer of several movies starting with Victory in 1981...
at Paramount, "Storm Warning." (see Hollywood Reporter), a $100+ million feature, which remains unproduced.
Ozn's next project was as executive producer along with Ted Danson
Ted Danson
Edward Bridge “Ted” Danson III is an American actor best known for his role as central character Sam Malone in the sitcom Cheers, and his role as Dr. John Becker on the series Becker. He also plays a recurring role on Larry David's HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm and starred alongside Glenn Close...
of Bill Russell
Bill Russell
William Felton "Bill" Russell is a retired American professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association...
's West End play "Elegies for Punks and Raging Queens" an AIDS related drama, optioned by Danson's Paramount based company, Anasazi Productions. Attached wereMichael Douglas
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; first as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the...
, Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
, Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
, Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
, Jason Priestley
Jason Priestley
Jason Bradford Priestley is a Canadian-American actor and director. He is best known as the virtuous Brandon Walsh on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role which catapulted him to recognition in the early 1990s....
, and the late Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
, but unfortunately the piece was never made.
Shortly thereafter, Ozn and Greene sold "God's Witness" to Promark Entertainment (producer David Bixler (co-producer Julia Verdin)exec producers Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Donald Kramer , was a U.S. composer and music theorist.- Biography :...
and aul de Souza] director Rowdy Herrington
Rowdy Herrington
Rowdy L. Herrington is a Hollywood director and writer currently residing in Malibu, California. He is married and has no children.-Filmography:-Education:...
). The name was changed to I Witness
I Witness
I Witness is an action film starring Jeff Daniels and James Spader. It was released in the United States on February 1, 2003.-Plot:Human rights activist James Rhodes arrives in Tijuana to help oversee local union elections. While there, he becomes embroiled in a mass murder at what appears to be a...
and the $8.5 million piece attracted Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia DeRossi. Shot in Puerto Rico and Mexico, it received critical acclaim in Latin America and Europe, due to its political content and actors' performances, but remained largely ignored in the US until Universal purchased the rights in 2007 and released the DVD.
Robert Ozn withdrew from the arts and entertainment industry in 2003 to raise (in concert with his ex-wife) his stepchildren after his divorce. He served as a judge for the Writers Guild of America Awards in 2005, 2006, and 2007 (Long form).
Ozn returned to the film business in 2009, producing along with Mickey Curbishley and Richard Luckett, a documentary about the life of British aristocrat Micky Burn
Micky Burn
Michael Clive "Micky" Burn, MC was an English journalist, commando, writer and poet.-Early life:By his own admission, in earlier life he "had been drawn to three autocracies: German National Socialism, Communism, and the Roman Catholic Church." Burn's father was secretary and solicitor to the...
, who was decorated for valor for his part in the British attack on the Nazi naval base at St-Nazaire, France,. He wrote a feature for the Sy Fy Channel, "Earth's Final Hours," and his TV pilot adaptation of his unpublished novel, Record Men, was nominated as a runner up finalist in the 2011 UCLA Extension TV Writer's Program Competition. He lives in Vancouver, Canada and Los Angeles, California.
Awards
Judge: Writers Guild of America Awards (longform) 2006, 2005, 2004- LA Times Video Top 10 of the Year (AEIOU)
- Method Fest 2003 Best Screenplay (I Witness)
- IFP Emerging Narrative Voices (Independent Feature Project) Screenplay (unproduced) 2002: Deadbeats
- UCLA Extension TV Writer's Program Competition: Runner Up Finalist for TV Pilot Record Men