Michael White is the genius producer behind shows like Sleuth, Oh! Calcutta!, The Rocky Horror Show, A Chorus Line, Two Gentlemen of Verona and films like My Dinner with Andre, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Polyester....and yet his name remains unfamiliar to most people. His close friends include Naomi Watts, Mick Jagger, Kate Moss, John Cleese, and he was responsible for the breakthrough exhibitions and performances that first brought attention to Yoko Ono, among others. Now thanks to filmmaker Gracie Otto, White’s work is being recognized through the entertaining documentary The Last Impresario which made its New York debut at DOC NYC. We had the opportunity to talk to Otto who shared her insight on meeting Michael, the importance of his work and more...

In a way the film plays out like a bittersweet comedy…

(Laughs) Michael will really like that!

So can you elaborate on how you defined the tone of the film?

I always knew I wanted to make a positive film about Michael, cause obviously when I met him I really thought his career was incredible and he deserved a certain sense of recognition. Some people have said I wasn’t hard on him, or questioned him about drugs and all this other stuff, but I had to keep telling myself that I wanted to focus on the celebratory aspects of his career and how important he is.

I feel like we’ve seen plenty of documentaries whose only purpose is to show the negative aspects of people, so I admired your film in that way, but also, why do you think he’s remained so much of a well kept secret in the entertainment industry?

At first I thought Michael was someone who was always the life of the party, but I learned he was shy, more of an Andy Warhol figure, who sat back and watched people, but it was never really about him. He enjoyed what happened when he put people together in parties or productions, but it was more about the energy than his own ego.

Do you remember when you first met him and he caught your eye, who did you think he was initially?

My friends always say I have a knack, kinda crazy thing where you end up in a weird situation hanging out with someone. I guess I just believe in chance encounters. I was going to Cannes with my best friend, but a volcano erupted and he couldn’t make it for the first few days, so I was there by myself wanting to go out and have fun, but I didn’t know anyone. So I met a guy at a nightclub who was going to Hotel Du Cap, and I thought “wow, this is where all the action happens!” so I went with this stranger. So I got there to a party where I noticed Michael with his walking cane and a very cool tie, he had this charming look to him and I ended up sitting next to him. He asked me who I was and I said I was no one. He started asking me where I was from, what I did...and then wrote down his number in a napkin. He said he would call me the next day at four, which I didn’t think would happen. But the next day he called and said he was going out with Mick Jagger and all these other people, so they picked me up and I ended up spending time with all these people! I was young, I was 23, and had gone to Cannes to try and get a film going on, but when this happened I thought it was more fun. This was in 2010, when social media wasn’t as huge and not everyone had internet on their phones in Cannes, so I remember I called my mom and asked her to Google this guy, she looked him up and told me about all the productions he’d done. Then he invited me to London, I saw my family friend Greta Scacchi and told her I’d met Michael. Then she told me he’d started her career and gave me his autobiography.

Once you realized all the contributions Michael had done, did you realize he was behind something that you really loved before you met him?

Yeah, I’d seen a lot of productions he’d done. I knew Rocky Horror and the Monty Python movies, but I guess what really struck me was that I learned a lot along the way. I’m lucky that because of my family in Australia I get invited to opening night for shows and musicals, but I’d never really taken any interest in dance and then I learned that Michael had been the first person to bring Pina Bausch to London and remembered having seen a documentary years before about her work, and thought how incredible it was that he’d been involved in this. Also with Yoko Ono, once I started digging through the archives I realized that Michael did one of her first shows in London, way before she became known for John Lennon and everything. He was so great at recognizing people’s worth, before they became who they were. He was like a springboard for many people’s careers, like Naomi Watts for example, with whom he never worked, but he took her to parties and introduced her to people. He was really good at nurturing young people’s careers if he thought they were talented.

Is Michael more of a Hollywood old-style producer or more of a Medici-like figure?

Definitely more of a Renaissance man, a lot of people say they didn’t even know who he was when he turned up for things. It’s great to have a creative producer who can bring people together, the word “impresario” is about someone who is able to put together a great team. He was great at all that and he was never intrusive with what the directors wanted to do. He was always encouraging people to be creative in the way they found best.

There was a point when great producers were put aside as critics became infatuated with the idea of auteurs and finding common threads in artists’ works. Would you say you’re more interested in becoming an auteur or exploring many avenues like Michael does?

For me there’s two different kinds of art, there’s the one in which you become a product and can sell your name, and the other way, which I enjoy more, is where you create a body of work for the rest of your life and that’s your art. You look at people like David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch or Sofia Coppola and Miranda July who have done amazing things.

Once you tell us how you met Michael you completely remove yourself from the film. How did you decide this?

It was a hard decision because a friend of mine, Gillian Armstrong, who is a bit of a mentor to me, always said to me the film was about me and Michael because of all the great stories I had to tell about my time with him, but on the other side I was thinking I didn’t need to be in the film at all. I felt like the way in which I met him and how the story started was important, but I didn’t want the film to be about me, so it’s a question we played around for a little bit, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to put myself in the parts where we saw all the work Michael has done, so this helped make this easier to decide.

There are probably many stories you had to leave out of the film. Will we see more Michael in your next projects?

At the moment I have a few projects in the works, but you never really know what’ll happen first. I mean, after all I was working on a film when I met Michael, so I might want to get back to finishing that. Michael really loved the film, he wants to make another film about all of his photographs and albums...which means we might go on forever!

To find out more about the film visit the official website.