Schwarz was born in New York City and is a graduate of SUNY Purchase Film Department.[1] His senior thesis documentary was Al Lewis in the Flesh, a short film profiling actor Al Lewis, famous for playing Grampa on the television series The Munsters.[2] The film observes Lewis as he interacts with the public at his Bleecker Street restaurant, Grampa's Bella Gente.
Schwarz' first job in the film industry was as an apprentice editor on The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's film adaptation of Vito Russo's seminal book.[3][4] Schwarz's work on this project would later bridge into the development of his own documentary about Russo, titled simply Vito.[5]
Career
Schwarz spent the late 1990s working in the low budget feature world, editing movies and trailers for directors such as Gary Graver, Fred Olen Ray and David DeCoteau. In 1998, Schwarz was hired to edit a documentary about the making of Gus Van Sant's controversial remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Psycho Path was included on the Universal Pictures Home Entertainment DVD release of Psycho, and was Schwarz's first foray into the burgeoning world of DVD bonus features, also known as value added material (VAM).[4][6][3]
As the DVD-Video format was introduced to the public, all the major studios began offering making-of featurettes and audio commentaries on their discs as an incentive to consumers to replace movies they already owned on VHS or laserdisc. Schwarz capitalized on this moment to segue into producing original bonus content, and soon became one of the leading producers in this field.[6][7]
In 2000, Schwarz founded the Los Angeles-based production house, Automat Pictures. Schwarz and a team of skilled producers created content for over 100 major DVD and Blu-ray studio releases, and soon expanded into the production of EPKs (electronic press kits) and original television programming.[1]
Following Hunter's participation in I Am Divine, Schwarz was approached by Hunter's partner, Allan Glaser, about adapting Hunter's best-selling autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star (2005, co-written with Eddie Muller), into a documentary feature of same name. The film features extensive interviews with Hunter, as well as friends and associates such as John Waters, Debbie Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, and George Takei.[16] It had its World Premiere at the 2015 South by Southwest Film Festival, and went on to screen at festivals around the world to great acclaim.[17][18][19] The film was nominated for "Outstanding Documentary" at the 27thGLAAD Media Awards.[20]
In 2021, Boulevard! A Hollywood Story premiered at Outfest Los Angeles. Schwarz produced and directed along with John Boccardo. The film is about Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, two young composers who are hired by movie star Gloria Swanson to adapt a musical version of Billy Wilder's 1950 film Sunset Boulevard.[23][24][25] The documentary also follows director Jeffrey Schwarz as he uncovers the story and discovers what happened to the two men later in their lives. The film features TCM's Robert Osborne in one of his final film appearances.
Currently in development is a feature documentary film Goddess: The Fall and Rise of Showgirls about the making of Paul Verhoeven's "misunderstood masterpiece" Showgirls.[29][30]