BACKSTORY

Though The Omen was director, Richard Donner's first major film, he
successfully choreographed a "roller-coaster thrill ride" that became the
hit of the 1976 summer season and rated as Lee's most financially
successful film, costing only 2.8 million to make and bringing home
over $60 million in the U.S. alone.

Lee enjoyed making the film saying, "...it is great fun because everyone
is so nice; lovely people like David Warner and Billie Whitelaw...," but her
highest praise went to Gregory Peck, whom she claimed was "a charming
man, so sweet and funny." Gregory Peck returned the compliment saying
that Lee was "a wonderful partner."

For his breakthrough film, Richard Donner picked a challenging
script that called for working with vicious Rottweillers, baboons
and a precocious, head-strong little boy named Harvey Stephens
(who won a Golden Globe as 1976's "best new discovery"). But
as the finished film attests, the director was up to the challenge.

Shooting the "baboon" scene was especially difficult. The
baboons were supposed to attack Lee's car, but getting them
to do it on cue wasn't easy. The animal trainers tried playing
games with the baboons, but the baboons caught on to the
games before Donner could record what he needed on film.
After shooting nearly 15, 000 feet of film, the baboon's finally
attacked the car after an animal trainer agreed to sit in the
"backseat of the car with the 'leader' baboon, which made all
the baboons outside go crazy."

Donner called Lee's 22-foot fall from the 2nd floor banister his
most difficult shot. He describes the shot saying, "You see the
momentum, you see her turn her head, the extreme close-up,
and then you see her smash into the floor. There are no cuts,
no doubles."

Donner's first plan for shooting the scene was to fit Lee with a
harness and swing her dramatically to the floor, but Lee balked
at that saying, "I'm a mother and a cable can snap. Please
come up with something else."

Donner said that he "was livid at first, but then I realized she
was right. Anything can happen. So one cameraman figured it out."
Rather than using a harness to "drop" Lee to the floor below, they
built a vertical floor, and then "dollied" Lee backward into it.

Though The Omen was the run-away hit of the summer, it was nominated
for only two Oscars - Best Song (Ave Santani)) and Best Score, both of
which it won, becoming the first horror film to receive a Best Score Oscar.
Goldsmith's toughest competitor that year was the infamous and brilliant,
Bernard Herrmann, who had received two posthumous Best Score
nominations for Obsession and Taxi Driver.