The Mirisch Company

Walter Mirisch began to work as a producer at Monogram Pictures beginning with Fall Guy (1947), the profitable Bomba, the Jungle Boy series, Wichita (1955), and The First Texan (1956), by which time the company was known as Allied Artists. Walter Mirisch was in charge of production at the studio when it made Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Love in the Afternoon (1957).

The Mirisch Company was founded in 1957 at which time it signed a 12-picture deal with United Artists (UA) that was extended to 20 films two years later. Its first production was Man of the West (1958) starring Gary Cooper. UA acquired the company on March 1, 1963, but the Mirisch brothers continued to produce for their distribution, under other corporate names, in rented space at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio.

It produced many successful motion pictures for United Artists, beginning with the release of Fort Massacre (1958) but later including Some Like It Hot (1959), The Horse Soldiers (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), Follow That Dream (1962 with Elvis Presley), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink Panther (1963), Hawaii (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and many others.

In 1964, Mirisch Films Ltd, or Mirisch Films GB was formed in the United Kingdom for the production of 633 Squadron, A Shot in the Dark and several other films. The Pink Panther featured an animated Pink Panther, which soon became a star of a series of theatrical cartoons made by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and released by Mirisch/UA. The cartoon series earned the partnership name of Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng for the copyright of The Pink Panther and is used to this day by special arrangement through MGM for new cartoon specials and series.

Mirisch first entered television in 1959 with the series, Wichita Town for NBC. It also co-produced live-action television shows such as The Rat Patrol, Hey, Landlord and The Magnificent Seven television series, as well as a number of television movies and cartoon shows of The Super 6 and The Pink Panther Show. In 1965, the company, along with Lee Rich started Mirisch-Rich Television Productions, with the intent to produce shows for network television and it maintains headquarters in the Samuel Goldwyn Studios. Rich left in 1967 and it was soon renamed Mirisch Television Productions.

The company forged long-term associations with directors such as Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards, Robert Wise, George Roy Hill, William Wyler, J. Lee Thompson, John Sturges, and Norman Jewison, who directed three consecutive successes for it: The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).