Volker Schlöndorff of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman", starring Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman and John Malkovich as Biff. Both actors won Emmys for their performances and Schlöndorff was nominated for an Emmy for his direction. The film premiered on television in 1985 and was released theatrically throughout Europe over the following years. Schlöndorff followed this with another TV movie in the US, "A Gathering of Old Men", based on the novel of the same name by Ernest J. Gaines. The film stars Richard Widmark, Holly Hunter and Lou Gossett Jr. and concerns racial discrimination in 1970s Louisiana. Schlöndorff returned to
Death of a Salesman (1951 film) to lose his grip on reality and slips between the past and the present, frantically trying to find where he went wrong. The cast consisted mainly of the Broadway cast, with the addition of Kevin McCarthy from the original London Cast. However, Fredric March replaced Broadway actor Lee J. Cobb after concerns arose over Cobb's alleged past with leftist politics. Just before the film was about to come out, Arthur Miller threatened to sue Columbia Studios over the short which was to appear before "Death of a Salesman". This short film, "Career of a Salesman", showed what the producers believed