“The world is not the same,” said Sony Motion Picture Group co-chair Amy Pascal in opening a series of spoken and filmed tributes at a memorial for former production chief John Calley, who died on September 13 at 81 after a long illness.
Speaking to an upbeat crowd on Sony’s massive Stage 27, Pascal eulogized the real man, a “master manipulator” who could be “insanely seductive” and “made movies that he wanted to see”. She described him as an expert at delivering the “soft landing—he could pull the rug out from under you before you even knew the rug existed”.