Otto Plaschkes, 75; Produced ‘Hopscotch’ and ‘Georgy Girl’

Otto Plaschkes, 75, who produced “Hopscotch,” a 1980 film starring Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, and co-produced “Georgy Girl,” a 1966 movie that starred James Mason, Alan Bates and Lynn Redgrave, died Monday in London after a heart attack.

During the 1970s, Plaschkes was a producer for the American Film Theatre, producing Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming” and Bertolt Brecht’s “Galileo,” among other things.

During the mid-1980s, he headed production for Cannon Productions.

Born in Vienna, Plaschkes was sent as a child to London in 1939 through Kindertransport, the program that spirited Jewish children out of Nazi territory. His parents and older sister later also made it to England, where his father began a business.

Plaschkes was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and began in the film business as a runner at Ealing Studios. In 1960, he was assistant director on Otto Preminger’s “Exodus.”