Julia Phillips

Julia Phillips (born April 7, 1944, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 1, 2002, West Hollywood, Calif.) was an American film producer and writer who was the first woman to win an Academy Award for best picture, for The Sting (1973).

Phillips was educated at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. (B.A., 1965), and worked in publishing before becoming a story editor for Paramount Pictures in New York City in 1969. She went on to be head of Mirisch Productions and then a creative executive for First Artist Productions. Along with her husband, investment banker Michael Phillips, and actor Tony Bill, Phillips formed (1970) Bill/Phillips Productions and moved to Los Angeles. Their films included Steelyard Blues (1972); The Sting (1973), which won seven Oscars including best picture; Taxi Driver (1976), which won the Cannes film festival’s Palme d’Or; and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). By the late 1970s Phillips—who also had become president of her own company, Ruthless Productions—was suffering the effects of drug and alcohol dependency. Even though she underwent rehabilitation therapy, she was unable to regain her former status.

Phillips’s fame turned to notoriety in 1991 when—no longer powerful—she published her memoir You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, which sharply criticized both the movie business and many Hollywood personalities. She followed her 1991 autobiography with a sequel, Driving Under the Affluence (1995), which was not well received, and, with Matt Drudge, she was coauthor of Drudge Manifesto (2000).