Jerry Weintraub, Hollywood Producer Behind ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ Dead At 77
NEW YORK (AP) — One of a final of a classical Hollywood showmen, Jerry Weintraub built his uncover business sovereignty on a Rolodex and chutzpah.
The Brooklyn-born son of a Bronx jeweler, Weintraub rose from a mailroom of a talent group to turn a tip unison upholder before changeable into a decades-long career as a tip Hollywood producer.
Along a way, Weintraub worked with a many famous of stars — Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, George Clooney, Brad Pitt — and was a tighten crony of former President George H.W. Bush. He relished his insider status, usually as they savored a stories that energetically poured out of him.
Weintraub, a energetic writer and manager who pushed a career of John Denver and constructed such hits cinema as “Nashville,” ”Karate Kid” and “Ocean’s Eleven,” died Monday in Santa Barbara, California. He was 77. A publicist for Weintraub pronounced he died of cardiac arrest.
“Jerry was an American strange who warranted his success by a perfect force of his instinct, drive, and larger-than-life personality,” pronounced Bush, a longtime friend. “He had a passion for life, and via a ups and downs of his inclusive career, it was transparent usually how many he desired uncover business.”
Weintraub unsuccessful in one of his many desirous gambits. His try to found his possess studio, Weintraub Entertainment Group, finished in failure after usually 3 years. But his prolonged career — really many alive during a time of his flitting — was noted by savvy creation (he was among a initial to theatre locus tours) and old-school class.
Weintraub had his choice lunch spots in Los Angeles, his dried home in Palm Springs and his adored places to moor his yacht off a French Riviera. A self-made man, he fashioned himself in a mold of aged Hollywood showman like Mike Todd, Cecil B. DeMille and P.T. Barnum. He patrician his 2011 memoir: “When we Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead.”
At a time, he joked he competence write another: “Dead, But Still Talking.”
“In a entrance days there will be tributes about a crony Jerry Weintraub,” pronounced Clooney, a star of a “Ocean’s” movies. “We’ll giggle during his good stories and extol his accomplishments. And in a years to come, a stories and accomplishments will get improved with age, usually as Jerry would have wanted it. But not today. Today a crony died.”
One of Weintraub’s many new successes was a 2013 Liberace play “Behind a Candelabra.” After a studios passed, he took it to HBO, where it won 11 Emmys.
He left countless projects behind, including a recently debuted HBO array “The Brink” with Jack Black, and an arriving big-budget reconstitute of “Tarzan.”
“If asked my philosophy, it would be simply this: Savor life, don’t press too hard, don’t worry too much. Or as a old-timers say, ‘Enjoy,'” he wrote his book. “But … we never could live by this truth and was, in fact, out working, hustling, trading, scheming, and creation a sire as shortly as we was aged adequate to leave my parents’ house.”
Growing up, Weintraub pronounced he father, a successful gem salesman, taught him “only dual things are critical during a finish of a week: how many we owe a bank and how many we have in it.”
Hired to work in a mailroom of a William Morris Agency, Weintraub afterwards landed a pursuit with Lew Wasserman’s MCA, where he worked as allege male for a agency’s stars.
His career as a upholder took a hulk step in 1970 when after a extensive courtship he swayed Elvis Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, to let him foster Presley concerts. It was during a time when Presley was commencement to do live shows after years of concentrating on movies.
Weintraub and partner Tom Hulett introduced such improvements as a difficult sound complement for Presley, an knowledge that propelled Weintraub into a tip ranks of promoters.
Around a same time, Weintraub saw Denver during a tiny Greenwich Village nightclub and was impressed by a mountaineer’s easy manner. He took on Denver as a client.
“He would be a exam box for all my theories on offered and packaging, for all we had schooled given we left home,” Weintraub said.
After huge success followed, Denver bought Weintraub a Rolls-Royce as a thank-you gift. Weintraub said, “I couldn’t assistance meditative that it wasn’t too prolonged ago that conjunction of us had train fare.”
Weintraub constructed a dozen Denver low-pitched specials on radio — winning an Emmy for one of them — and a strike 1977 film “Oh, God!” It starred George Burns as God and Denver as a immature grocer whom God approaches to widespread his message.
He also set adult successful tours for Sinatra and constructed a radio special “Sinatra — a Main Event,” as good as corner appearances with Denver. Among other musicians Weintraub worked with were Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond and a Beach Boys.
After his initial matrimony (which resulted in a son, Michael), Weintraub married flame thespian Jane Morgan in 1965. They had 3 adopted children: Julie, Jamie and Jordy. The span distant though never divorced.
Weintraub’s importance shifted to cinema with 1975’s “Nashville,” Robert Altman’s acclaimed comedy-drama of American life as seen by a eyes of 24 characters in and around a nation song business. It landed 5 Oscar nominations, including best picture.
In his memoir, Weintraub pronounced he didn’t know a difficult script, though he was fervent to furnish it since “Altman did, and it was Altman who was going to make a movie.”
Weintraub went on to furnish such important films as Barry Levinson’s “Diner,” ”All Night Long,” ”The Karate Kid,” and William Friedkin’s controversial, gay-themed “Cruising.”
He became arch of United Artists in 1985 though was suspended after usually 5 months amid reports of disagreements with banker Kirk Kerkorian. He after reached a allotment with a company.
In 1987, he attempted to settle his possess studio, WEG, though it went swell adult in 1990 after a fibre of flops including “My Stepmother Is an Alien.”
“I had, in a sense, promoted myself out of a pursuit we always wanted, that was revelation stories, producing,” he wrote in his memoir. “(The films) now were being done for me instead of by me.”
After a WEG bankruptcy, Weintraub continued producing, putting out such films as “Vegas Vacation” and “Ocean’s Eleven” and a starry sequels. He remade “The Karate Kid” in 2010, environment a plan adult in China and starring a immature Jaden Smith, Will Smith’s son. Weintraub pronounced he “questioned it 150,000 times” before subsidy it.
Starting in a 1980s, Weintraub became famous as one of a Republican Party’s many constant supporters in Hollywood. He had been tighten to Bush years before he became president, and in 1991, he hosted a star-studded celebration for a boss during his Malibu home and played golf with Bush and former President Ronald Reagan.
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The late AP Entertainment Writer Bob Thomas contributed biographical element for this story.