McCarthy ’75 Produces ‘Star-Studded’ Documentary Harry Benson: Shoot First

Stephen McCarthy ’75, managing director at KCG Capital Advisors, is also partner/executive producer with Matthew Miele’s Quixotic Endeavors (QE) film production company, featuring corporate/individual biopics, such as Crazy About Tiffany’s (starring Jessica Biel and Katie Couric, among others) and Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorfs (starring Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, among others). Their third film Harry Benson: Shoot First, will be in theaters—including New York City—and video on demand, starting Dec. 9, 2016.

Harry Benson: Shoot First is a 90-minute documentary on one of the most accomplished photojournalists of the past five decades. Benson’s work has captured cultural icons in defining moments of history—including Robert Kennedy’s assassination—as well as in moments of playful ease—the Beatles in the midst of a pillow fight—with compassion, elegance, and intimacy. His photographs have graced the covers of TIME, LIFE, and People more than 100 times, notes film critic Isaac Guzman in the Nov. 26, 2016, issue of TIME. In Guzman’s review, titled “A Star-Studded Tribute to a Lovable Lensman,” he warns viewers, “Don’t blink…Every flutter of an eyelid risks blocking out a wonder of the photographic world: Michael Jackson frolicking like the Pied Piper at Neverland Ranch with a retinue of children; Bill and Hillary Clinton on the precipice of a kiss on a hammock; Bobby Fisher being nuzzled by a wild Icelandic horse.”

McCarthy’s involvement in QE (“a wonderful sidelight at this stage of my career”) began almost six years ago when director Matthew Miele, one of the QE founders, approached him through a mutual friend about the Bergdorf project. “I immediately got in touch with my dear friend/late classmate Seth Gelbum ’75, a prominent Broadway lawyer from Loeb and Loeb and worked with his partners on the first two film projects.” In addition, after a Homecoming visit to campus, McCarthy brought Miele to meet Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies Jeanine Basinger, “who was been interested in and supportive of their ventures,” he says.

“To date, I’m enjoying this industry from the business side, but given the breadth and depth of ‘the Wesleyan mafia’ in Hollywood, you never know whom you’ll meet to potentially collaborate on upcoming projects (like our Norman Rockwell film in the works)!” As for his thoughts on Harry Benson: Shoot First: “To my mind, the film is the equivalent of walking through a fantastic gallery and instead of just looking at the photos, you are having the entire experience curated by someone who had been there at the exact historical moment each photo was taken—it’s riveting.”