Geno Havens, Veteran Casting Director, Dies at 75
The Hollywood Reporter
By Mike Barnes
4/30/2016
He worked on films for George Lucas, Carl Reiner, Brian
de Palma and Terrence Malick and helped jumpstart the careers of Dennis Quaid
and Prince protégé Apollonia.
Geno Havens, a casting director whose credits include
Carl Reiner's The Jerk and Brian de Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, has died.
He was 75.
Havens died Friday of complications from a stroke at USC
Medical Center in Los Angeles, screenwriter, producer and actor Kevin Bernhardt
told The Hollywood Reporter. They were friends for 30 years and worked together
on several films.
Havens helped launch the acting careers of Dennis Quaid
and Bernhardt's ex-wife, Purple Rain co-star and Prince protege Apollonia.
Havens also served as casting director on such films as
More American Graffiti (1979) — he was a dialogue coach on the George Lucas
original — and Alligator (1980), written by John Sayles, and he helped secure
actors for Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978).
Patrick "Geno" Havens studied acting at the
University of Utah and later landed a job with a casting company led by Fred
Roos and Mike Fenton.
Early on, he teamed with Blaxploitation directors Arthur
Marks and Jack Hill on such films as Detroit 9000 (1973), Bucktown (1975),
Switchblade Sisters (1975) and Friday Foster (1975), starring Pam Grier.
His résumé also includes the Robert Blake 1970s ABC
series Baretta and the films Hardbodies (1984), Girls Just Want to Have Fun
(1985), Maniac Cop (1988), Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)
and The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (1996).
He more recently worked in casting and development with
producer Elie Samaha and as a director of creative development for Timepiece
Entertainment.
Havens, who stood less than 5-feet-tall, forged a career
in Hollywood despite the fact that he was diagnosed with osteogenesis
imperfecta, a genetic disorder characterized by bones that break easily, when
he was 22-months-old.
"He never once talked about his physical
problems," Bernhardt said. "He was an inspiration to anybody and
everybody."
Survivors include a nephew.
HAVENS, Gino
Born: 1940,
U.S.A.
Died:
4/29/2016, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Gino Havens’
western – casting director:
Centenial (TV) - 1978
