Edd Griles, the director behind Cyndi Lauper‘s iconic “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” music video and other MTV-era classics, died Oct. 22 at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey. He was 78 and had battled Alzheimer’s disease, according to his daughter, Allyson Monson, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Born Edward Mori Griles on Nov. 18, 1945, he graduated from Flushing High School in Queens and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His career began in advertising at DDB Worldwide in 1965 as an art director before joining the National Hockey League in 1972 as editor and creative director of Goal Magazine and executive producer of NHL Films.
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Griles entered music video direction in 1979, working with Blue Angel, which featured Lauper. After the band’s dissolution, he collaborated with the Brooklyn-born singer on her breakthrough solo single, filming “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the summer of 1983, according to the outlet. The video, which would become a feminist anthem, featured Lauper’s mother, Catrine, and wrestler Captain Lou Albano as her parents, premiering on MTV that December.
The wrestler’s involvement stemmed from Griles and producer Ken Walz’s relationship with Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation, which developed while attempting to create a wrestling-themed movie. The video accompanied the song’s rise to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1984 and won the inaugural MTV Video Music Award for best female video. Recently, it surpassed 1 billion YouTube views in January 2022.
Griles continued his collaboration with Lauper, directing videos for “Time After Time” – earning him a VMA director of the year nomination – “She Bop” and “Hole in My Heart.” His music video portfolio expanded to include numerous artists, including Huey Lewis and the News (“The Heart of Rock & Roll,” “If This Is It,” “Stuck with You”), Eddie Murphy (“Party All the Time”), Lee Greenwood (“God Bless the USA”), Peter Wolf (“Come as You Are”), Sheena Easton (“Jimmy Mack”), and Deep Purple and Rainbow.
Beyond music videos, Griles produced the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, the inaugural ESPY Awards in 1993, and the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants from 1996-99. He directed “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” episode of Shelley Duvall‘s Tall Tales & Legends in 1985, starring Ed Begley Jr., Charles Durning, and Beverly D’Angelo.
He also produced Robert Altman’s 1988 CBS adaptation of Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and created and produced awards shows for automobiles and bikes. Griles is survived by his wife, Danielle, daughter Allyson, son-in-law David, and grandchildren, Max and Carly.
