Katz Out of the Bag

Ephraim Katz’s monumental “The Film Encyclopedia,” ranging over 1,266 densely-printed pages from AAAA (Associated Actors and Artistes of America) to Italian filmmaker Valerio Zurlini, has been a prime reference for film critics and film lovers generally since it was published in 1979.

Inevitably the fast-changing film world demanded an updating of the encyclopedia, and in 1989 Katz finally received a contract to do it. He was deep into the revisions when, on Aug. 2, he died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 60.

Where stands the new edition? “He was through T and into U,” says his daughter, Alyssa Katz, a researcher at the Village Voice. She and Katz’s agent have been holding discussions with HarperCollins, with whom Katz had signed to do the updating; the good and relieving news is that the work will go forward. “The Katz Encyclopedia,” revised and current, will be published, probably in 1993.

Katz, born in Israel and reviewing films while in his late teens, came to the United States in 1959 and made television documentaries for CBS. In 1960, he co-authored a book on the capture of Adolf Eichmann. He was doing advanced film studies at NYU when he became aware of the lack of a one-volume film encyclopedia. It was the better part of a decade in the doing, and Katz typed each word himself in his pre-computer days. He was doing the revisions on a word processor.