Ely Landau was an American producer and production executive. He was the wife of Edie Landau an American film and television producer and executive.
In 1973, Edie and her husband Ely founded The American Film Theatre, which adapted dozens of plays into films for a series of brief theatrical runs.
Highlights from the series included Academy Award nominee “The Man in the Glass Booth,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and “A Delicate Balance,” which starred Hepburn again.
Edie and her husband continued to work together on original projects, such as “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 1962.
The film, based on Eugene O’Neill’s play of the same name, won acting awards for Katharine Hepburn, Dean Stockwell, Jason Robards, and Ralph Richardson.
From 1959 to 1961, Ely Landau won a Peabody Award for The Play of the Week, a series of stage plays mounted for television.
The series, for which Landau was primarily responsible, was distributed by NTA, which received praise for being innovative.
He stated in a 1959 interview: “With this, I’m deviating from the norm. But I don’t think any independent station will succeed if all it does is Westerns, crime shows, and situation comedies like everyone else.”