“I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.”
Maya Angelou

New York – Bonnie Bruckheimer made both a career and a life out of using her creative genius and business acumen to bring together key elements that made some of Hollywood’s most iconic films. As the producer of such films as “Beaches”, “For the Boys” and the Halloween hit that continues to delight audiences, “Hocus Pocus”, Bruckheimer assembled and led these and dozens of other productions from beginning to end and more often than not, with huge box-office success.

Now 80, she left the television and film business behind years ago, and now uses her creativity far from Tinseltown, assembling teams and staging homes at Vesta Home, a full-scale interior design company that works with top tier real estate firms in New York, with work featured worldwide.

“Bonnie brings her business maturity and experience to the table, but she also has the number one quality I look for in an employee, and that’s a fire in the belly,” says Julian Buckner, Founder and CEO of Vesta Home. “She has energy and passion that you usually see in young upstarts looking to make a mark and she brings that sort of hungriness to everything that she does,” he says.

“I’m called a development executive, but I sell the services and bring the designers and team together, Bruckheimer says. In fact, two recent projects she developed included JoAnne Woodward and Paul Newman’s second home of more than 40 years, a Fifth Avenue Apartment in New York City and real estate tycoon Barbara Corcoran’s personal New York apartment.

Both were featured in the New York Times, less than six months apart. The best part for Bruckheimer, both sold within days.

Her friends are not surprised. “It makes sense, especially if you understand that the whole process of staging (or building) is like producing,” says Paula Silver, the former President of Columbia Pictures Marketing Department and longtime Bruckheimer friend. “You have to build the structure, you have to think ahead of the process, you have to know the beginning, middle and end, and that’s (both producing) and staging,” she says.

Raised in New York City, Bruckheimer was just out of high school and knew she couldn’t afford college, so she took her one skill set and launched a career. “I was a fast typist”, she says. “I became an executive secretary to the Treasurer of Columbia Pictures Industries.” Despite her speed and efficiency behind typewriter, she was still in a world she had never known, with far more seasoned veterans. “The women I worked with were highly trained, executive secretaries and I was not at all, “Bruckheimer recalled. “But I listened and worked hard and that impressed the treasurer enough to give me a shot, “she says with a smile. “I learned a lot from that job and was doing well, then we moved to Hollywood in 1969.”

The “we” included her husband at the time, producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “He was making television commercials in New York before becoming a film producer, while I figured out my next steps”, she says. Once in Los Angeles, it didn’t take long to get her footing. “The people in New York told me they could make some calls to people at Columbia Studios, and that’s really how I started in the film business,” she says.

“I had several jobs at the studio and when I wasn’t busy, I would walk around and talk to the old-timers who were there for forty or fifty years in some cases and they would tell me these wonderful stories and I would ask them about their jobs and they taught me a lot about what they did, and I was completely absorbed”, says Bruckheimer, “I really liked what I did and didn’t have any idea I could do anything else, but I was eager to learn everything I could,” she says.

Her interest to cross-over from the administrative side to the creative new world she discovered, did not go unnoticed. Colleagues soon realized her knowledge and creative mind were a huge asset to the projects she was involved in, so much so, that in 1979, when she worked on the movie “Rose” with actress Bette Midler, Midler hired her as her assistant.

Bruckheimer credits Midler with launching her career as a producer. “The opportunities I was given by Bette Midler are the reason I got to be a producer,” she says. By 1985, the two were equal partners in their own production company (along with Margaret Jennings South) and formed “All Girl Productions”, where Bruckheimer coined the company motto: “we hold a grudge”, in deference to the politically incorrect term at the time for women.

While it was a tongue in cheek stab at the so called “boys clubs”, the women actually had a strong advocate in Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was president of Disney at the time. “He gave us a production deal to write and develop our own projects, but there weren’t a lot of “us” back then, maybe us and Goldie Hawn,” she recalls. “We watched it get better over time, but there is still much to do, just look at how many female directors get nominated for awards.”

After the success of “Beaches” Margaret Jennings South left the company and Midler and Bruckheimer continued to produce films, including “Stella” with John Goodman, and “For the Boys”, starring Midler and James Caan.

In 1997, Bruckheimer was Executive Producer of Midler’s HBO music special; “Midler in Concert: Diva Las Vegas”, which earned Midler an Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. Bruckheimer later produced “Man of The House”, starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Farrah Fawcett, before she and Midler moved their shingle over to the Sony Tri-Star lot, which included a television production deal.

The company launched the television show, “Bette”, which was designed to showcase Midler’s comic timing. Despite positive reviews and a Golden Globe nomination for Midler, the show was cancelled after 16 episodes, which ultimately led to the demise of the Bruckheimer / Milder partnership.

Deborah Murphy, a former film executive In Toronto, Ontario, recalled Bruckheimer’s body of work in Hollywood as “a body of work that represents a block of high-quality film productions that inspired generations of young women to see that there is a way through the glass ceiling behind the camera,” says Murphy. Other industry women agree.

“I was working on the Warner Bros. lot as an assistant on “China Beach” and we were wrapping the show, I heard she was looking for an assistant on the Disney lot and I went over, slipped my resume under her door, and by the time I got back to my office, she already called,” says Bruckheimer’s former assistant, Yvette Taylor, a development executive in Los Angeles.

Taylor recalled how she was completely at ease with Bruckheimer from the start. “I just remember that it was a great first meeting and I remember thinking two things, we share the same work ethic, and I am going to get an education from this woman, and I did! In fact, I called her Queen Pivot, because she could she could pivot on a dime, moving from planning to production to film to television to music concerts, she could do it all and make it all look easy,” says Taylor.

One of her final productions was “The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood”, which was written and directed by Academy Award winner, Callie Khouri. “After she won the Academy Award for “Thelma and Louise”, we approached her and asked her to rewrite the script and she turned us down. But after she was offered the chance to direct her first feature as well, she agreed,” says Bruckheimer.

In 2002, Bruckheimer and Midler went their separate ways.

No longer having the backing of a studio, she realized quickly that raising money to produce films was not her thing. So, the woman who never attended a college class in her life, began teaching a course at the top film school in the country, at The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. There, for more than a decade, women flocked to her class; “Career Challenges for Women”, to learn everything they could about the industry from a woman who rose to the top of the mountain.

One of Bruckheimer’s former students is Uttera Singh, the writer, actress and director of “Pinch”, a movie that won accolades for her writing and directing at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. It was also a nice surprise for Bruckheimer when she attended the screening in New York. As a thank you for her mentorship, friendship and love, Singh opens “Pinch” with a full screen “Special Thanks to Bonne Bruckheimer.” “Bonnie said you can’t do that, and I said “yes, in India this is how we give thanks, in the opening.” Says Singh. “She really inspired me to make my movie.”

Singh says she is not alone in her praise. “She’s so kind and generous with each and every one of her former students, that we are all in a sort of “Bonnie Cult,” says Singh. “So many of her former students are thriving because of what she did for us, she got us ready, and we are grateful,” she says. Both Bruckheimer and Singh share a special bond beyond the world of film. “She is my adoptive mother,” I met her at a time when I was dealing with the death of my mother and she was always there for me and supported me,” says Singh.

In 2008, Bruckheimer began grief counseling at Our House, a grief support center for people dealing with loss. Bruckheimer focused on grieving teenagers as a volunteer.

In between making movies, a five-year marriage that produced two children and running a production company, it was Bruckheimer’s ability to juggle a number of things at the same time served her well despite the hectic schedule. Looking back, Bruckheimer says she never felt like having her career and raising two children was a burden. “There is no greater gift than being a parent,” she says beaming.

“She always let you bring your children to work, and if you wanted – you could bring your dog, “says Taylor. “She understood that we worked hard, but like her, had a life at the end of the day. In fact, Bruckheimer made sure she spent as much time as she could with her family. “I never went to parties or networked, I went home to take care of kids, help with homework and get them to bed – then read scripts and have try to a life,” she says. Of course, in her spare time, she coached both her children in baseball.

Reflecting on her life and career, Bruckheimer says she is proud of her accomplishments, but “the most important aspect of my life is being the mother of my children, Keith Martell, Miranda Diggens Martell and my daughter-in-law Grace Diggens Martell. No title, credit on a screen or money earned could ever compare to the extraordinary world of motherhood, which I have been blessed with for 37 years” she says.

Today, Bruckheimer says she hopes her life’s work and personal journey encourage other women not to give up on having what they want in life, including a career and family. “She wants people to rewire, not retire,” says her friend Silver. In the meantime, her story continues as she rises to adapt to the challenges in her new industry, that is quickly becoming as competitive as her former industry.

It’s a fact not lost on her daughter.

“Something about my mom that will never cease to amaze me is her ability and willingness to grow and adapt to the new or different. It’s something that I am constantly in awe of and hope to emulate as best I can, and that I wish more people could practice. Whether it be new technologies, new music, or new social or political ideologies, she always wants and is willing to work to understand things more deeply and to be on the right, loving side, says Miranda. “Everyone has always said how young my mom looks for her age, which… well, duh. Look at her! But what I believe truly keeps her young is her ability to consistently seek, consume, and find appreciation and understanding of the new. She’s my hero!”

“She knows there is nothing more important than family,” says Silver, “Bonnie is also the hardest working woman I know, and her whole approach to life is whatever you’re going to do, do it great. Staging is just like a production, pull it all together, get it done get it sold, next!”.