Robert Ozn (born Robert M. Rosen), New York City born producer, screenwriter recording artist and actor, best known for being the vocal half of 80s synth pop duo EBN-OZN solo act, Dada Nada, and for his later work as co-producer and co-writer with Colin Greene of the human-rights themed feature film I Witness starring Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia DeRossi. Judge for the Writers Guild of America Awards 2005, 2006, 2007 (Long form).
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As a child singing prodigy, he was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus, appearing in numerous productions in both the "Old Met" and the "New Met" at Lincoln Center. At the age of 16, he was the youngest student ever to receive a Key Scholarship award from Herbert Berghof acting school (HB Studio) in Greenwich Village. At 17, he was accepted as a voice and theater major at the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied with Norwegian Bass/Baritone Roy Samuelson of the New York City Opera.
As a teenager , he went on the road with Doc Severinsen and The Tonight Show band, working with Lou Tabackin, Ed Shaughnessy, Snookie Young, Ross Tompkins and Buddy Rich.
His first significant musical theatre role was that of Hero in a tour of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Zero Mostel. Shortly after, he created the role of Henry Anderson in the original Broadway cast of Shenandoah starring John Cullum (album: Atlantic Records), which originally premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House. Subsequent acting work: leads in Vagabond Stars a pre-Broadway piece at the Berkshire Theater Festival written by Alan Poul, Pirates of Penzance with Karla DeVito, and understudying Gary Sinise in the LA company of Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class.
However, it was not until his supporting lead in a small National Endowment for the Arts short film "No Regrets" directed by Ruth Charny and produced by Ellen Sherman (see Dateline NBC) and his subsequent lead in the Broadway rock musical Marlowe [1] along with Patrick Jude and Lisa Mordente that he came to the attention of the New York music industry, in particular rock impresario Ron Delsner, who encouraged him to begin his own recording career.
As a production Marlowe opened to disastrous reviews for the writers, producers and director, but the critics gave nods to Jude, Rosen and Mordente, who received a Tony nomination for Best Supporting actress. So, despite itself, the play remained lit.
Austin, Texas-based producer Jay Aaron Podolnick (see [VillaMuse.com] and Eric Johnson) introduced Rosen to Ned Liben, then the owner of New York's Sundragon Recording Studios, and a music prodigy in his own right. Liben had built his first professional studio at the age of 14 and by the time he met Rosen had worked with Jimi Hendrix, The Talking Heads and a host of New York's rockers.
Both Greenwich Village born and raised, the two shared a passion for the rock, R&B, rap, and Latin music played in the hedonistic underground Manhattan club scene of the pre-AIDS early 80s, which was a racially and sexuality-mixed world of disparate tastes and styles. Places like The Loft, The Garage, Area, Save the Robots, Les Jardin, Limelight gave birth to a number of dance oriented artists that that went on to greater fame such as Madonna and Jellybean Benitez.
Their initial collaboration "AEIOU Sometimes Y" was recorded in 1981, (released 1983) the first American record to ever be completely executed on a computer (a Fairlight CMI). First played in public by DJ Afrika Bambatta for a black and gay crowd at The Roxy before it was released, "AEIOU" was a bizarre mix of rap, spoken word, digital sampling, rock and R&B dance music. Liben and Rosen cut their own 12-inch dance single which was instantly signed by Arista Records in London by A&R wunderkind Simon Potts and in New York by Elektra Records' President Bob Kraznow before the band even had name. As the story goes, the two could not agree and as a joke they decided to strike the first letters from each of their last names and pull out the vowels. Later in an interview with MTV V.J., Martha Quinn, OZN revealed their legal names and quipped they'd changed them "because Liben-Rosen sounded too much like a doctor's office". Angry that OZN had let the cat out of the bag, Elektra Records demanded that the two never use their given names in public again. Their given names were stricken from subsequent label credits and press releases, and from then on, their names stuck.
Besides common musical interests, they shared a passion for business and had over three decades of work in the arts between them, a remarkable number for two 20-something artists. So, they decided early on that EBN-OZN would produce finished product not demos, which in its day was almost unheard of for unknowns. In keeping with their business concept, the two artists wrote, produced, performed and most importantly owned the master recordings and copyrights and publishing of their material prior to ever getting their deals done. More unusual, OZN wrote and developed the production concepts for their videos. EBN-OZN was not just a band, it was a self-contained artistic business.
Nothing bore out the chemistry between EBN and OZN more than their self-produced MTV smash video for "AEIOU Sometimes Y." Awarded an LA Times Top 10 of the Year pick, and in that new era of music videos gave them international stardom on the club circuit.
Darlings of the music press, they were lauded with extraordinary platitudes: Playboy magazine, June 1984 "OZN. . . the best white rapper alive." Billboard magazine May 1984: "The Steely Dan of the 80s" New York Post, May 1981 "EBN - New York's answer to Tomas Dolby." Boston Globe July 1985 ". . . last night watching OZN live proves he is the ultimate rock sex symbol. . ."
Their first album "Feeling Cavalier," released by Elektra in 1984, went Top 20 on the College Radio Chart and their second single, "Bag Lady" (I Wonder) went Top 40 on the Billboard Club Chart and charted Top 10 Club internationally. The video for Bag Lady starred Imogene Coca as the Bag Lady and like AEIOU, enjoyed a worldwide television and club play.
After the duo's split up in 1985, EBN went on to run his exclusive SOHO studio working with Scritti Politti and Arif Mardin, while OZN moved to Los Angeles and started his own label, One Voice Records and his own solo act, "Dada Nada."
Dada Nada got a distribution deal with Polydor/UK and he distributed it himself in North America, taking his business chops into label ownership, by managing his own financing, marketing and promotion and landing two Top 5 Billboard Charting dance hits, "Haunted House" and "Deep Love." Continuing to be a ground breaker, his was the first white House record and Hip House (rap and house) record to ever crack the Top 5 in the United States (MTV, Music News, February 1990). Dada Nada enjoyed excellent press coverage in the US and London. "Robert Ozn's raps kicks Falco's ass right off the dance floor." (The Beat December 1989) "Real songwriting and great vocals . . . more than just hot beats" (The Face Magazine May 1990).
Ozn's collaborators on Dada Nada tracks included Bad Boy Bill, David Morales, Frankie Knuckles, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, Steve Wight (now an associate professor of recording arts at Cal State), and Bob Greenberg. Dada Nada's mix of rap and sung vocals (both by Ozn) placed him in the limelight with US and international club DJs but at odds with mainstream American record executives who could not grasp a white front man who rapped and sang a hybrid of club, hip hop and pop. Recorded in 1990, Dada Nada proved to be ahead of its time, as rapped verses and sung choruses became the norm in American radio pop by the turn of the century.
OZN's last public appearance was the 1990 U.S. Dada Nada tour, in which he suffered a gang-related shooting incident during a show in Chicago. EBN died in 1998 of a heart attack in Soho, New York. He is survived by his wife Sallie Moore Liben and son Max Liben.
Ozn went on to a producing and screenwriting career in the film business, where, in a trade-off for learning the production side of the industry, his first job was working for free for Oliver Stone and Janet Yang's Ixtlan Films. There, he became the company's first-call reader for A-list material.
He then went to work for Richard Gladstein at Miramax as his script analyst where he 'read' Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and worked as a freelance creative executive much of the Miramax's European material as well as Dimension Films' horror faire. He also worked for talent agency CAA, producer Paula Weinstein and directors Louis Malle, Sydney Pollack and James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment.
Becoming a producer/writer, along with partner Colin Greene, he sold an event film to Mario Kassar at Paramount, "Storm Warning." (see Hollywood Reporter), a $100+ million feature, which remains unproduced.
Ozn's next project was as executive producer along with Ted Danson of Bill Russell's West End play "Elegies for Punks and Raging Queens" an AIDS related drama, optioned by Danson's Paramount based company, Anasazi Productions. Attached wereMichael Douglas, Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Gere, Patrick Stewart, Jason Priestley, and the late Elizabeth Taylor, but unfortunately the piece was never made.
Shortly thereafter, Ozn and Greene sold "God's Witness" to Promark Entertainment (producer David Bixler (co-producer Julia Verdin)exec producers Jonathan Kramer and [[Paul de Souza] director Rowdy Herrington). The name was changed to I Witness and the $8.5 million piece attracted Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia DeRossi. Shot in Puerto Rico and Mexico, it received critical acclaim in Latin America and Europe, due to its political content and actors' performances, but remained largely ignored in the US until Universal purchased the rights in 2007 and released the DVD.
Robert Ozn withdrew from the arts and entertainment industry in 2003 to raise (in concert with his ex-wife) his stepchildren after his divorce. He served as a judge for the Writers Guild of America Awards in 2005, 2006, and 2007 (Long form).
Ozn returned to the film business in 2009, producing along with Mickey Curbishley and Richard Luckett, a documentary about the life of British aristocrat Micky Burn, who was decorated for valor for his part in the British attack on the Nazi naval base at St-Nazaire, France,[2]. He wrote a feature for the Sy Fy Channel, "Earth's Final Hours," and his TV pilot adaptation of his unpublished novel, Record Men, was nominated as a runner up finalist in the 2011 UCLA Extension TV Writer's Program Competition. He lives in Vancouver, Canada and Los Angeles, California.
Judge: Writers Guild of America Awards (longform) 2006, 2005, 2004