Andrew Gunn.John Sciulli/Getty Images
Andrew Gunn’s career was a Canadian success story in Hollywood.
Mr. Gunn, who has died at the age of 58 after a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), started working in show business when he was in high school at Lawrence Park Collegiate in Toronto. Though he was an actor in his teenage years, he went on to produce more than a dozen films, many of them Disney comedies starring actors such as Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler.
One of Mr. Gunn’s early successes was Freaky Friday, the 2003 film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, playing a mother and daughter. The premise is that the two wake up one morning inhabiting each other’s bodies, and from there a comedic plotline unfolds.
The film was based on a novel by Mary Rodgers that had previously been adapted into a feature film in 1976, starring Barbara Harris and a young Jodie Foster, and in 1995 had been made into a TV movie that was poorly received.
“[The 2003] Freaky Friday got made after Gunn pitched the idea to then-studio head Nina Jacobson, who was initially worried about taking on a theatrical remake after a previous remake aired on ABC several years earlier,” the Hollywood Reporter wrote, adding that one thing that clinched the deal was landing Ms. Curtis as the lead.
Mr. Gunn’s Freaky Friday, with a budget of US$20-million, grossed more then US$160-million worldwide, making it a huge success. In 2025, he produced a sequel, called Freakier Friday, with much of the same cast.
Actor Dwayne Johnson with producer Andrew Gunn on set in 2009.Ron Phillips/Getty Images
The list of Hollywood movies he produced includes Cruella (2021), Bad Santa 2 (2016), Race to Witch Mountain (2009) and Sky High (2005).
Following Mr. Gunn’s death on March 2, Ms. Curtis sent the following message to Mr. Gunn’s wife, Jane Bellamy-Gunn: “Movies last forever and his work will last until the end of time and his contributions and his art and the way people felt about him and the stories he told are forever, we loved him and respected him and miss him, Jamie.”
Andrew Gunn was born at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto on July 15, 1967. His mother, Anne (née MacAndrew), was a stay-at-home mother, while his father, Charles, worked in finance.
The Gunn family was once in the meatpacking business, but Andrew’s great-grandfather sold his firm, Gunn Meatpacking, in the 1930s to the company that is now Maple Leaf Foods.
Mr. Gunn was proud of his Scottish heritage; he often wore the Clan Gunn kilt and had a tattoo of the Gunn family crest on his back.
“From the day he was born he was a high-spirited and adventurous boy,” his mother said. “He loved the wide-open spaces, hiking, fishing and catching salamanders in the brook which he then sold to schoolmates for 25 cents,” Mrs. Gunn said of the time the family lived near Hamilton. “He developed his love of singing there, in the Hamilton Cathedral choir and, unbeknownst to us, auditioned for a part in Anne of Green Gables at the Hamilton Theatre, and appeared in many of their productions.”
The family moved to follow Charles Gunn’s career but they were back in Toronto by the time Andrew was in Grade 10. At Lawrence Park Collegiate, the good-looking and outgoing Andrew, whose nickname was Gunner, played football and rugby and also performed in school musicals, including playing the lead in Grease.
“He began acting lessons at the Jewish Community Centre in North York with Keanu Reeves, and signed with the Edward G. Agency. He appeared in two movies and several TV shows and many commercials,” Mrs. Gunn said.
During this period Mr. Gunn met the media executive Doug Bassett, through Mr. Bassett’s daughters. The mogul, then head of Baton Broadcasting, which owned CFTO-TV in Toronto, became Mr. Gunn’s mentor.
“During his university years, he spent his summers working for Mr. Bassett,” Mrs. Gunn said.
Mount Allison University, in Sackville, N.B., recruited him to play football but he quit after a year. He found football “too confining” and the town too quiet. He switched to the University of Western Ontario, in London, and concentrated on academics.
After graduation, he worked in London, England, as an intern at the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, where much to his surprise he was assigned to write articles. He regaled his younger brother, Graeme, with the eccentricities and drinking habits of the Telegraph journalists.
After his stint in London, he moved to study at the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California, where he earned a master’s degree in communication management. He then joined Great Oaks Entertainment, run by filmmaker John Hughes, and was part of the team that produced several hit films, including Home Alone 3. After learning as much as he could about the production business he started his own firm, Gunn Films in 2001.
While everyone knows what an actor does, the role of a producer is less well-known. A movie producer is in charge of the entire project, from the concept stage to getting the final product into theatres or onto streaming services. It means raising money and convincing movie stars to work on your project. The job involves knowing everyone from camera operators to bankers, and demands great talent in schmoozing.
Mr. Gunn used the same natural charm he showed in high school to grease the wheels of success in Hollywood.
His brother, Graeme, remembers going to a red-carpet event at Paramount Studios. “He said ‘we’ll find a table, grab a drink. I’m going to work for 10 minutes,’” Graeme remembered. “I watched him work the room; it was the most natural thing ever. He came back and said, ‘Okay, let’s hang out.’ I asked him how he could do that and he said, `That’s what I do.’ It was amazing to see.”
When he wasn’t working, Mr. Gunn was either in the gym or working on his hobby, restoring older European motorcycles known to aficionados as café racers. The mechanic he was working with finished his final bike in Toronto last summer. By that time, however, Mr. Gunn’s ALS had advanced so far that he couldn’t ride anymore.
“I am so proud of all my husband Andrew’s achievements in life, so many of which are tied to his mentoring and inspiring others,” his wife said. “Andrew always put others before himself. His modesty of his success is a testament to the charming gentleman he was in life.”
Mr. Gunn leaves his mother, Anne; his siblings, Graeme Gunn, Cameron Gunn and Hilary Knight; children, Isabelle and Connor; and his wife, Ms. Bellamy-Gunn. His father, Charles, died three months before Andrew.
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