More than 50 years ago, Michael Kutza created the film fest that still brings stars to Chicago. His new book is ‘Starstruck’

CHICAGO -- Michael Kutza did not build any of the dozens of skyscrapers he can see from his apartment on the top floor of the downtown high rise in which he lives. But what he accomplished as the founder and energetic director of the Chicago International Film Festival has helped shape the cultural landscape of the city and given it a star-studded atmosphere.

Or, to hear him put it, “I magically transformed Chicago into Hollywood for more than 50 years.” That’s the immodest but accurate subtitle of a new book that charts his career. Its title is, simply, “Starstruck.”

The festival he hatched in 1964 brought hundreds of good movies to town, some bad ones too, but also enough stars and directors to wow the populace.

Hundreds of them pack the pages of this book, which is a memoir of sorts but also a fascinating take on the meaning of stardom and celebrity. He is sometimes brutally honest in his assessment of the galaxy he encountered, more than willing to share stories that are not always flattering but ring true. And it’s all a great deal of fun.

Sitting in his movie memorabilia-filled apartment, he says, “The best part of the book is that most of the people in it are dead so I have some freedom. But I did get to know so many beyond their star surface. I tried to always be respectful. I was no crazy, fawning fanboy and so I got to know that many of these people away from the camera are real people, with real problems.”

He credits former Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet with helping him launch the festival by introducing him to former film star Colleen Moore Hargrave, who lived in Chicago and helped connect him with some of her Hollywood elite pals.

The book is organized in a cagey and effective fashion, with each short chapter reflecting a movie title. So in “West Side Story,” we learn that as a child growing up on our city’s West Side, Kutza would nail a white bedsheet to the wall of the basement of his family’s home and show movies. He put on puppet shows and he was wowed by the shows he frequently attended as a young teen with one of his mother’s friends at the Chez Paree nightclub. He started making short films and, unable to find a theater here that would show them, started entering film festivals in other countries, and winning prizes.

This was not the career his parents had in mind for him. His mother, father, aunt, uncle and cousins were all doctors and, as he writes, “I went through the motions of pretending I was destined for a career in medicine.” He went to college — a few of them — for a short time, but movies would be his life’s work.

The first Chicago International Film Festival took place in 1965 at the bygone Carnegie Theater on Rush Street. Bette Davis would come to town for the awards ceremony but the first night was a disaster. As Kutza writes, “We had one spotlight shooting up into the sky and a big black limousine waiting in front … it looked like a big deal … The only problem was no one showed up … I was staring out at 500 empty seats.”

Things, needless to say, got better. Kutza recalls his first meeting with Mayor Richard J. Daley, who told one of his minions, “Give this kid McCormick Place for his movies” but then advised the young festival creator, “Remember, don’t put my name on anything. Those films you show will lose me votes.”

Yes, as he writes, “I was always on the lookout for sensitive sexual subjects,” but he also brought to town such items as Martin Scorsese’s first film, a pair of John Lennon and Yoko Ono cinematic offerings, and introduced all manner of great foreign directors to the city as well as star after star after star.

He would spend six months each year traveling the globe to find his festival’s films and he was always pleasantly surprised at stars’ and moviemakers’ desire to visit Chicago. “I never really had trouble with that. Most of them wanted to see the city, most of them didn’t know much more than Al Capone, Mayor Daley and architecture. And the people here were delighted. This is a star-starved city.”

This book does contain a lot of photos but it is a shame that there are none by the late Victor Skrebneski, since his estate keeps a very tight handle on his archive. None of his spectacular festival poster shots are in this book. But Kutza writes, “(Victor) made us instantly famous with a single photo … model Paulette Lindberg, soaking wet, holding our award statue in her arms.” You may remember some others.

Kutza stepped down as artistic director of the festival in 2018, accepting the title of CEO emeritus. He is thinking about writing another book, “about my personal friends,” he says. “Maybe I will title it ‘The Crazies.’” He is in discussions with some documentary filmmakers about filming his life story. He consults, he travels, he dines with friends.

He appears to have few, if any, regrets. He talks enthusiastically about the podcast that he started in 2019. Called ”Nose to Nose,” he and aspiring stand-up comic Geno Suarez, a smart and thoughtful guy, talk about and review movies and discuss anything else on their minds.

Kutza is ever eager to share stories, to gossip, to offer opinions. He is a generally upbeat guy but he will also tell you that he is worried about the future of the movie business. “I asked myself, ‘Will people go back into theaters to see movies?’ They did it for ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Elvis’ but streaming has become the way in which so many seem comfortable watching films,” he says. “And it makes me remember the glory of seeing movies at McClurg, at the Granada, the movie palaces.”

The sun begins to set across the city. High-rise lights flicker. Kutza is talking again about the movie adventures of his youth and the early days of the festival when he is asked what sort of doctor he might have been had he followed in his family’s footsteps.

He laughs and says, “I think I might have been a good doctor,” he says. “I have been told I have a great bedside manner. Whatever that means.”