Film recalls the ‘Hollywood Priest’ who disrupted the entertainment industry

With his imposing 6-foot-6 stature, steely jaw, and a heart on fireplace for the Gospel, Father Ellwood “Bud” Kieser, lovingly recognised as the “Super Priest,” as soon as reduce a more substantial-than-lifestyle figure from the pulpit of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westwood. The stars in the pews integrated Jerry Lewis, Jane Wyman, and Ricardo Montalbán, in a time when considerably of Hollywood continue to went to church. 

But 20 several years just after his loss of life, a new documentary particulars how Father Kieser also introduced the church to Hollywood: Paulist Productions’ “Hollywood Priest: The Story of Fr. ‘Bud’ Kieser” takes audiences to the middle of the limelight, with insights into Father Kieser’s affect on display business enterprise and how he navigated an business that grew away from the moral compass of the Catholic Church.

Father Kieser landed at St. Paul the Apostle, a number of miles from Beverly Hills and Hollywood, following arriving from Philadelphia in the 1950s. A Paulist priest, he experienced been shaped to evangelize through media. The film recounts how whilst educating his common grownup inquiry classes for Catholics and curious non-Catholics, he captured the consideration of a single attendee, Joe Connelly, the author-producer behind “Leave It to Beaver.” 

With aid from his Tinseltown parishioners and a enthusiasm for participating the common society, Father Kieser’s anthology Tv collection “Insight” debuted in 1960 underneath his Paulist Productions banner. With nearly 300 episodes, it was at 1 position the longest-running syndicated weekly present on tv.

“You understood if you ended up going to do an ‘Insight,’ you ended up likely to get excellent of the director and high-quality of crafting and quality of the solid,” ‘Insight’ star Bob Newhart shares in a person of a sequence of interviews with the solid and crew. 

The Hollywood priest experienced a hand in nearly every facet of the Emmy-profitable series that lasted much more than two many years, enlisting a who’s who of A-list talent, such as Martin Sheen, Ed Asner, Cicely Tyson, Patty Duke, Ron Howard, and Gene Hackman. The film tells us he was ready to do this no matter of each individual actor’s religion custom. 

“Bud was a drive to be reckoned with. He knew how to twist arms. He knew how to check with for issues he had no business inquiring for. Individuals have been fearful when they noticed his title on their simply call sheets in Hollywood each individual working day,” Father Eric Andrews, president of the Paulist Fathers, quipped.

Father Kieser (proper) on established with actor Martin Sheen. (Paulist Productions)

As a Paulist attuned to the cultural instant with a hand extended to nonbelievers, Father Kieser was far from a Bible-thumping preacher at the pulpit. Televangelists with fists comprehensive of dollars crowded the airwaves in the ’70s and ’80s. They have been a stark contrast to his come-as-you-are inclusivity and introspective nonetheless daring fashion. 

“I was seeking to function the no-man’s-land in between the previous and the long term, the frontier concerning the planet and the Church, and needed all the aid I could get,” he wrote in his 1991 autobiography. “And often I essential to do a lot more than hear.”

To that conclude, the priest could be found picketing with Cesar Chavez in the vineyards around Bakersfield or with Franciscans at a nuclear examination site in Nevada. He joined the boards of many corporations committed to social justice, and frequented U.S. airmen in Japan. Later, he established the prestigious Humanitas Prize. 

Not a single to shy away from complex topics, Father Kieser tackled themes on “Insight” like racial justice, abortion, and money punishment. “Bud Kieser and I were usually trying to find approaches to acquire the Gospel concept and utilize them to the modern planet,” explained “Hollywood Priest” producer Terry Sweeney in the film.

Father Kieser took the same approach with his best-rated “Family Specials.” After observing a gap in the marketplace for meaningful entertainment for teenagers, Father Kieser set out to develop programming that permitted them space to contemplate their personhood, engaging them with thoughts about intercourse, medications, dying, divorce, and more. He cast youthful up-and-comers in the roles, such as Laura Dern and Emilio Estevez.

Father Kieser was also outspoken in his criticism of Hollywood’s use of gratuitous sexual intercourse and violence, but did not favor government censorship. In its place of disregarding the dark, despairing techniques of the world, Father Kieser challenged his writers to take a look at the concerns nearer, with heart. 

“Father Kieser wanted to kick the writers in Hollywood in the butt, to say to us you have to have to be far more accountable for the episodes that you compose,” Humanitas Prize-profitable “St. Elsewhere” and “Homicide” writer Tom Fontana shared in an job interview. 

The film poster for “Hollywood Priest: The Tale of Fr. ‘Bud’ Kieser.” (Paulist Productions)

In a 1999 PBS interview, Father Kieser expounded on this further: “If American media is a contributing bring about of violence in our culture, I consider in the long term, television and motion pics could turn out to be just the reverse, a sizeable contributor to the decline of violence in our homes and on our streets.” 

The Father Kieser-produced films “Romero,” starring Raúl Juliá as the martyred Salvadoran archbishop and upcoming saint, Archbishop Óscar Romero, and “Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Working day Story,” went deeper into these human struggles.

In “Hollywood Priest,” we meet a man who was not immune to the murky trappings of humanity himself. The film explores the religious crises, loneliness, and pain Father Kieser faced in his function as priest, such as in the course of his close romance with a nun. In a shifting segment, we understand he sooner or later found healing after traveling to Africa with “Roots” actor John Amos, supporting the communities influenced by famine.

These tales are informed from the backdrop of Father Kieser’s battles with the FCC, a Church trying to implement the reforms of Vatican II, and the shifting political and social mores of the turbulent ’60s and ’70s. Tastefully animated images, charming particular anecdotes with his acclaimed collaborators, and archival footage assistance bring Father Kieser’s story to daily life.

Currently, the Gospel messages he propagated continue to glance for a home on film and television screens, even if the media landscape seems to be vastly various (there is a cause why studios are searching for the up coming “Ted Lasso” throughout the COVID-19 pandemic). Sixty-one a long time considering the fact that the initial “Insight” episode aired, Hollywood even now doesn’t have an open up-door policy about spiritual leisure. But Father Kieser was under no circumstances interested in pushing spiritual doctrine as he was with seeking to “illumine the human problem,” constructing bridges to meet up with folks exactly where they had been.

“Hollywood Priest” is an truthful portrait of a person of God who experienced the gravitas of a philosopher and the sharp wit of a motion picture mogul. Enlightening the entertainment sector and holding its players accountable appears like an impossible endeavor. But Father Kieser was ready to disrupt the Hollywood machine and support redefine what it suggests to notify human stories.