Best Picture
BARRY SPIKINGS
Barry Spikings
- (Barry Spikings [center] with [from left] Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino and John Wayne [presenter] at the 1979 Academy Awards accepting the Best Picture Oscar for The Deer Hunter)
Biography
BIO
Barry Spikings was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, in 1939.
He began his career as a journalist, working for Farmer’s Weekly among others.
Spikings joined the actor Stanley Baker and producer Michael Deeley in the formation of Great Western Enterprises in the early 1970s. Great Western produced music festivals (which turned into a money loser) and was part of an investment group that purchased the film distributor British Lion in 1973.
By 1975, he had co-produced his first feature-length film. Spikings and Deeley also produced the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) with singer David Bowie in his first starring role.
In 1976, British Lion merged with EMI Films and Spikings and Deeley turned the struggling production company around by focusing on the U.S. market and bringing in Hollywood studio financing. The Deer Hunter (1978) received 9 Oscar nominations and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Following a string of box office failures, Spikings left what had now become Thorn-EMI in 1983. He became head of production for Nelson Entertainment in 1985 and co-produced another 5 films through 1994.
More recently, through Spikings Entertainment, he co-produced Lone Survivor (2013) which received two Oscar nominations for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.
Additional biographical information is available at: 
