The founder of the movie advertising firm Kaleidoscope Films, Keuhn (pronounced “keen”) reinvented the short films used to advertise features — the “trailers” played before movies in theaters.
“He came into the world of previews when they were done very conventionally, and he reinvented them,” said Fox Films vice chairman Bob Harper. “He pioneered the idea of previews as a stand-alone piece of entertainment.” Best known for writing the tagline for Jaws 2 (1978) — “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.” — Kuehn also was behind such attention-getting trailers as the The French Connection (1971), The Sting (1973), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones trilogy (begun in 1981), Back to the Future (1985), and Schindler’s List (1993), among others. He died January 29 from lung cancer at age 66.