Hollywood Icon Jerry Weintraub Dead At 77

Jerry Weintraub was involved in the careers of John Denver, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra  and filmmaker Robert Altman, and was legendary for his showmanship.

The cause was cardiac arrest, his publicist said.

Once best known as a concert promoter and a music manager, Mr. Weintraub became a force in the film business with Mr. Altman’s “Nashville,” Barry Levinson’s “Diner” and Carl Reiner’s “Oh, God!” He joined in producing those movies in the 1970s and ’80s, before a crippling business failure temporarily halted his Hollywood career.

A longtime intimate of former President George H. W. Bush — initially a friend of Mr. Weintraub’s second wife, the torch singer Jane Morgan — Mr. Weintraub made himself into a myth by combining his three hallmarks: political access, Hollywood success and relentless charm. That persona was cemented both in a 2010 memoir, written with Rich Cohen, called “When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man,” and “His Way,” a 2011 HBO documentary about his career.

“All life was a theater and I wanted to put it up on a stage,” Mr. Weintraub wrote in his memoir. “I wanted to set the world under a marquee that read: ‘Jerry Weintraub Presents.’ ”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.