Barbara Gips, who wrote evocative catchphrases for movie advertising campaigns — most famously “In space no one can hear you scream” for the hit 1979 science-fiction horror film “Alien” — died on Oct. 16 in the Bronx. She was 89.
Her daughter, Dana Gips, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was complications of a stroke,
Ms. Gips’s chilling “Alien” tagline is routinely listed among the most acclaimed promotional slogans ever written for a movie. The New York Times movie critic Janet Maslin, who otherwise disliked the film, noted, “The thing that most made me want to see ‘Alien’ was that irresistible line they’ve been using in the ads.”
In the years before the internet, when there was “still an air of mystery surrounding a film’s release,” Kimberly Lindbergs, a film journalist and researcher, wrote in 2019 on her blog cinebeats.com, “Gips’s bleak warning ignited our imaginations and spoke to our shared nightmares.”
Gregory Lawrence wrote in the entertainment trade publication Backstage in 2024 that the “Alien” tagline “almost feels like a personal attack on the reader, placing the second-person pronoun in the center” of tomblike isolation.
Ms. Gips recalled to The Times in 1981 that she came up with the line one evening while riding in a car along Riverside Drive in Manhattan with four of her children and gazing out at the Hudson River.
She had previously seen a screening of “Alien” with her husband, Philip Gips, a graphic artist and the designer of the movie’s poster, which featured a cracked egg that oozes a misty green and yellow light. She might have earlier suggested a tagline or two for the movie, her daughter said, but this one seemed different: a more gripping portent of helpless terror.
“I looked out at the water, thinking how lonely it seemed at night, how lonely it must be in space,” Ms. Gips said. “All of a sudden, that line occurred to me.”
Her daughter, Dana, has a different recollection. As she recalled, Ms. Gips first uttered the tagline while riding with her husband and daughter on the Cross Bronx Expressway after making a hospital visit. What mother and daughter agreed on is that Dana, then a teenager, replied, “That’s a good one, Mom,” and Mr. Gips eagerly submitted the phrase to 20th Century Fox, which released the film.
The movie — the story of a terrorized spaceship crew, starring Sigourney Weaver and Tom Skerritt and directed by Ridley Scott — won an Academy Award for best visual effects. Those effects included a shocking scene of an extraterrestrial exploding out of a man’s chest cavity.
For her work on “Alien,” Ms. Gips won awards from the Art Directors Club of New York and Communication Arts magazine, and suddenly she had a new career. “That was the first tagline she had ever written that was used and published,” Dana Gips said in an interview. “I think they paid her like $500 for it.”
Barbara Joan Solinger was born on July 10, 1936, in the Bronx and grew up in the Riverdale section of the borough. Her father, Louis Solinger, owned a mattress ticking business. Her mother, Ray Leah (Frank) Solinger, volunteered at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale.
From childhood, Ms. Gips recalled to The Times, she wrote and produced her own plays, enticing children from the neighborhood to perform in them. They sold tickets and gave the money to charities.
She graduated in 1957 from Boston University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting and received a master degree from Columbia University in 1958. After the birth of the first of her five children, she returned to writing plays for children; they were performed in classrooms and school auditoriums and directed by teachers she knew.
Her daily routine in those days, she told The Times, involved awakening before her family to write. After the reception of “Alien,” she began working on ads for other movies, sometimes with a couple of screenings and three or four meetings scheduled in a week. And she regularly read new scripts.
“I have a strong need to create,” she said. “And through writing, I can get into a character not myself.”
Dana Gips said that her mother went on to write taglines for roughly two dozen films. They included: “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), the drama about divorce and parental rights that starred Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman (“Ted Kramer is about to learn what 10 million women already know”); “Fatal Attraction” (1987), a thriller starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close about an extramarital affair that turns deadly (“On the other side of drinks, dinner and a one-night stand, lies a terrifying love story”); and “Postcards From the Edge” (1990), based on Carrie Fisher’s semi-autographical novel (“Having a wonderful time, wish I were here”).
In addition to her daughter, Ms. Gips is survived by four sons, Steven, Michael, David and James; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Her husband, whom she married in 1958, died in 2019.
Along with movie taglines and children’s plays, she wrote articles for local magazines and occasionally acted, appearing onscreen in two romantic comedies directed by her son David, whose professional name is Archie Gips. She played a tourist in “Loveless in Los Angeles” (2007) and a grandmother in “Chloe & Keith’s Wedding” (2009).
Her biggest thrill involving a tagline she wrote came from “Alien,” she told The Times. “I’ll never forget going to pick up theater tickets on Broadway,” she said, “and passing this enormous sign with my line on it right on the corner of 44th and Broadway.”
Jeré Longman is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk who writes the occasional sports-related story.
The post Barbara Gips, Creator of Memorable Movie Catchphrases, Dies at 89 appeared first on New York Times.
