Lynn Stalmaster was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He moved with his family to Beverly Hills and attended Beverly Hills High School and UCLA, where he received a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Theater Arts. In 1955, Stalmaster opened his own casting office and became the first independent casting director in motion pictures. Stalmaster worked with Hal Ashby, John Frankenheimer, Arthur Hiller, Sydney Pollack, George Stevens, Billy Wilder, and William Wyler. For those directors and many others, Stalmaster assembled casts for BEING THERE, COMING HOME, THE GRADUATE, HAROLD AND MAUDE, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, INHERIT THE WIND, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, TOOTSIE, WEST SIDE STORY, and many more.

In 1968, he became the first casting director to receive billing on a separate card in a film’s main titles for Norman Jewison’s THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and that credit, “Casting by Lynn Stalmaster”, has appeared on more than 180 major motion pictures over six decades. In 2003, the Casting Society of America presented Lynn Stalmaster with its Career Achievement Award and in 2016 Stalmaster became the first casting director in the history of the Academy to receive an Honorary Oscar.