Jules Buck; Producer of Classic Movies

Jules Buck, a movie producer whose partnership with actor Peter O’Toole brought to the screen such classics as “The Lion in Winter” “What’s New, Pussycat?” and “The Ruling Class,” died Thursday in Paris of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 83.

Buck began in Hollywood as a photographer, taking notable pictures of such movie greats as W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn and Clark Gable.

During World War II, he served in the Army Signal Corps as a cameraman with the rank of captain. After the war, he was the cameraman on two John Huston documentaries: “The Battle of San Pietro,” released in 1945, which the American Film Institute calls one of the greatest American films, and “Report From the Aleutians.”

He then became an assistant producer on the 1946 Robert Siodmak-directed classic “The Killers,” which starred Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner and Edmond O’Brien, and associate producer on such films as “Brute Force,” “The Naked City” and “We Were Strangers.” He also produced “Love Nest,” a slight 1951 comedy that featured Marilyn Monroe in one of her first starring roles.

Angered by the hunt for Communists in Hollywood during the McCarthy era, Buck joined with prominent writers and directors such as Philip Dunne, Huston and William Wyler to form the Committee for the First Amendment, which mounted a high-profile campaign to defend civil liberties. Using a plane lent by Howard Hughes, he was part of a group that flew to Washington in 1947 for a protest march on the eve of the first interrogations by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Although he was not a Communist and was never blacklisted, Buck found the atmosphere in the Hollywood of the 1950s so oppressive that he left the United States and moved with his family to Paris. There he discovered the films of Jacques Tati and introduced them to American audiences.

In 1957, Buck moved to London, where he met O’Toole and launched a production company, Keep Films, with the young Irish actor that helped to revive the flagging British film industry. Except for “Lawrence of Arabia,” Buck produced or co-produced every movie O’Toole starred in between 1959 and 1975, including “Becket,” “The Lion in Winter,” “What’s New, Pussycat?” “Under Milk Wood” and “The Ruling Class.”

Buck and his wife, Joyce, returned to the U.S. in 1980 after 28 years in Europe. She established a successful interior design business in London and Los Angeles, where she did design work for many celebrities, including Coral Browne, Vincent Price and Sam Jaffe. Joyce Buck died in 1996.

Buck subsequently returned to Paris, where his daughter, Joan Juliet, was editor of French Vogue. His survivors include Joan Juliet Buck of Santa Fe, N.M.; a brother, Gene, of Florida; two nieces; and a cousin.

Buck’s ashes will be buried in Paris.