Guy McElwaine, a former top Hollywood agent and onetime president, chairman and chief executive of Columbia Pictures who for the last six years was president of Morgan Creek Productions, has died. He was 71.
McElwaine died Wednesday at his home in Bel-Air after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, said his daughter, Alexandra McElwaine-Grane.
"I wouldn't say he was old school," said James G. Robinson, chairman and chief executive of Morgan Creek, "but I will say he brought all the good stuff from the '50s, '60s and '70s forward with him, meaning he was a very honorable guy, and his word truly was his bond, and whatever deal that he made, he kept."
McElwaine worked in the mail room at Paramount Pictures in the 1950s before joining the publicity department at MGM and then going to work for the public relations firm of Rogers & Cowan.
In the early '60s, he launched his own public relations and management company, representing such clients as Warren Beatty, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, the Righteous Brothers, and the Mamas and the Papas.
In 1969, McElwaine joined Creative Management Associates (CMA), where one of his clients was young director Steven Spielberg.
"Guy was a good friend and a fabulous representative of my career in its early stages," Spielberg said in a statement. "He represented his clients the same way he maintained his friendships. With loyalty, great care and a fabulous sense of humor."
In 1975, McElwaine gave up his successful career as an agent to become senior executive vice president in charge of worldwide production for Warner Bros.
But he returned to the agency business after 18 months, joining International Creative Management (ICM), which had been formed in 1975 with the merger of CMA and International Famous Agency.
As an agent, McElwaine was involved in packaging talent for such films as "The Towering Inferno," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial."
"He was a very respected agent," said Jeffrey Berg, ICM chairman and chief executive. "He was able to read the psychology of situations very well and knew how to get a deal done in a hard market.
"The unique thing about his career is he did a little of everything: He worked in the independent market and was a senior executive at two major studios."
In 1981, McElwaine became president of Rastar Films, the company founded by producer Ray Stark and acquired the previous year by Columbia.
