“Barbara Gips, who helped sell Ridley Scott’s classic horror sci-fi thriller Alien to unsuspecting moviegoers with her now-legendary tagline “In space no one can hear you scream,” has died. She was 89. Gips died Oct. 16 in the Bronx of complications from a stroke, a spokesperson for WME announced. Gips, who worked as a copywriter”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
Gips died Oct. 16 in the Bronx of complications from a stroke, a spokesperson for WME announced.
Gips, who worked as a copywriter, said the line for Alien (1979) popped into her head while she was washing dishes, and all the other words that had been previously considered for the poster were summarily discarded.
“In addition to being a downright genius piece of great writing, the tagline is factually correct for the vacuum of space,” Dave Addey noted in his 2021 book, Typeset in the Future: Typography and Design in Science Fiction Movies.
Her late husband, acclaimed graphic designer Philip Gips, who had created artwork for Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Downhill Racer (1969), co-designed the Alien poster, which features an egg cracking and emitting an eerie green glow as it hovers. So this was a family affair.
Janet Maslin didn’t review the film for The New York Times but began a 1979 story about the Sigourney Weaver starrer by writing, “The thing that most made me want to see Alien was that irresistible line they’ve been using in the ads.”
Gips’ work is on countless lists of the best movie taglines ever written.
Meanwhile, she also came up with taglines for at least two other posters that her husband worked on: 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer (“Ted Kramer is about to learn what 10 million women already know”) and 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan (“It’s a life so outrageous it takes two women to live it”).
Born Barbara Solinger in 1936 in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, Gips graduated from Yonkers High School, from Boston University (with a bachelor’s degree in drama) and from Columbia University (with a master’s of arts degree).
She married Philip in 1958, and they were together until his death in October 2019 at age 88. (Philip, by the way, created the ESPN logo as well.)
Gips wrote taglines for 1983’s Silkwood (“Sometimes the most unlikely person turns out to be a hero”); 1987’s Fatal Attraction (“On the other side of drinks, dinner and a one-night stand lies a terrifying love story”) and No Way Out (“Is it a crime of passion, or an act of treason?”); and 1990’s Postcards From the Edge (“Having a wonderful time, wish I were here.”)
Survivors include her sons, Michael, Steven, David and James; a daughter, Dana; grandchildren Lindsay, Brian, Alison, Keith, Alex, Dylan, Lauren, Ellie, Lucy, Wally and Kaya; and great-grandchildren Rena and Talia.
“She was a highly educated, multi-talented woman having been a teacher, an actress, an author, a playwright and a successful copywriter,” her son Steven wrote on Facebook. “She loved to read, attend the theater [and] go to movies.
“Beautiful, smart and funny, she was an inspiring example of a person living with integrity, compassion and boundless joy who valued family and friendship over everything else. She had a positive impact on everyone who knew her.”