Film Producer

The Billionaires (as estimated by Forbes magazine) Meet the billionaires in our online interactive by clicking here , or on the link to the left . High-p rofile trustees Steven Mnuchin is chief executive of OneWest Bank, the largest bank in Southern California. His father is art dealer Robert Mnuchin, a former investment banker who is a partner in the L&M Arts galleries in Manhattan and Venice, Calif. Edward Minskoff and Charles Cohen are two leading New York-based real estate figures.

At 85, Besedka Johnson was discovered by Hollywood in the locker room of a Los Angeles gym. An executive producer of the movie "Starlet" was also working out at the YWCA when "she recognized some sort of star quality in Johnson" and asked her to audition for the independent film, according to the filmmakers. "I thought it has got to be a great big joke," Johnson later said of her immediate response, but "when you're this old, it's like let's just go along with it and see what happens.

Singer and actress Julie Andrews has listed the Brentwood house she owned with her late husband, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards , for $2.649 million. Less than a month after coming on the market, the tidy white home with gray shutters is already in escrow. The traditional-style house features a family room and living room with French doors opening to a fanciful garden that appears to be "practically perfect in every way" to borrow a phrase from "Mary Poppins. " The formal dining room has a cathedral ceiling and glass walls.

Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic whose gladiatorial “thumbs up, thumbs down” assessments turned film reviewing into a television sport and whose passion for independent film helped introduce a new generation of filmmakers to moviegoers, has died. He was 70. Ebert, who had battled cancer in recent years, died Thursday in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He had undergone several surgeries to remove cancerous tumors from his thyroid and salivary glands, ultimately losing his jaw to the disease, and was hospitalized in December for a broken leg. While his cancer diagnosis and the resulting treatments forced him to pull back from criticism in 2006, he remained active as a writer and maintained a powerful presence on social media sites that included his award-winning blog, Roger Ebert's Journal.

The gig: Jason Blum is a producer whose career took off when the low-budget horror film "Paranormal Activity," which he played a key role bringing to the big screen, became a surprise hit in 2009 and spawned a new Hollywood franchise with annual sequels. After spending most of his career in the independent film world, the 42-year-old has reshaped his business around the "Paranormal" model, aiming to make inexpensive movies with mass audience appeal. He produced April's hit horror film "Insidious," is working on more "Paranormal" sequels for Paramount Pictures and is developing projects under a newly signed deal with Universal Pictures.

JERUSALEM -- Film producer Yoram Globus was arrested for suspected tax evasion and released on bail Tuesday evening, local media reported . The Israel Tax Authority asked for Globus' arrest as part of its investigation of the veteran movie maker. According to a statement from the tax authority Wednesday, Globus withdrew more than $7.3 million from two of his companies in 2005 and failed to declare it as income. Tax authorities calculated the interest on the resulting tax debt that has accumulated over the years at more than $4 million.

Since Cuban film producer Carlos Vives died in Havana last week at 71, tributes have floated in from newspapers and websites across the Spanish-speaking world. Except, of course, in the United States, where because of Cold War-era political rationales Cuban culture remains largely a taboo topic. By any measure, Vives was a cinematic mogul, with more than 130 works to his credit, including about 40 feature films. More significantly, he backed a number of movies that delved deep into the intricacies of Cuban society and the complex daily lives of ordinary people, while quietly challenging the island nation's communist orthodoxies.

Prosecutors in Poland have questioned a newspaper editor about published allegations that a leading film producer sought a $17.5-million bribe to lobby the government for more media-friendly laws. The allegations against Lew Rywin were carried last month by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. It reported he approached its chief editor with the offer last July, claiming he represented Prime Minister Leszek Miller. Rywin, 57, is one of Poland's most prominent media entrepreneurs.

Stephen Friedman, 59, producer of such films as "The Last Picture Show" and "The Big Easy." Friedman earned a bachelor's degree in economics and a law degree at Harvard University. Entering the motion picture business as an attorney, he worked for Columbia Pictures, Ashley-Famous Agency and Paramount. He founded and operated Kings Road Entertainment with profits from his first producing effort, "The Last Picture Show" in 1971.

Jake Eberts, the Canadian independent producer and founder of Britain's Goldcrest Films, which revived the British cinema industry in the 1980s with a string of Oscar-winning movies, including "Gandhi" and "Chariots of Fire," died Thursday in Montreal. He was 71. He was diagnosed in late 2010 with uveal melanoma, a rare cancer of the eye, which recently spread to his liver, said his wife, Fiona. During four decades in the film business, Eberts financed or produced more than 50 films, including four that won Academy Awards for best picture: "Chariots of Fire" (1981)

Since Cuban film producer Carlos Vives died in Havana last week at 71, tributes have floated in from newspapers and websites across the Spanish-speaking world. Except, of course, in the United States, where because of Cold War-era political rationales Cuban culture remains largely a taboo topic. By any measure, Vives was a cinematic mogul, with more than 130 works to his credit, including about 40 feature films. More significantly, he backed a number of movies that delved deep into the intricacies of Cuban society and the complex daily lives of ordinary people, while quietly challenging the island nation's communist orthodoxies.

Nigel Lythgoe, the über reality-TV producer, is a one-man brand for bringing the world of dance to the masses, mainly through the Fox series "So You Think You Can Dance. " Later this month, he will host a special cinematic event that is intended to give classical ballet a leg up in terms of public exposure. "Ballet's Greatest Hits" is a filmed version of a January gala that took place at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa, Fla. The gala performance featured excerpts from famous ballets -- including "Swan Lake," "Giselle" and "The Nutcracker" -- performed by dancers from top companies around the world.

Robert E. Relyea, who began producing films with actor Steve McQueen in the 1960s and rose to president of production for MGM/UA in the late 1990s, has died. He was 82. The Hollywood veteran, who also worked with such actors as Elvis Presley and John Wayne and directors John Sturges, Robert Wise, Peter Yates, Stanley Donen and William Wyler, died March 12 at a Thousand Oaks hospital of natural causes, his family said. Born May 3, 1930, in Santa Monica, the UCLA graduate was the third generation of his family to work in the film industry.

Nearly $4 million in independent spending has poured into Los Angeles election campaigns in recent weeks. A Times analysis finds that more than three-quarters comes from groups tied to unions , and that, in addition to efforts on behalf of mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel, a significant amount is being spent on City Council races as unions look to strengthen their influence at City Hall. Greuel's time working for former Mayor Tom Bradley  is the latest in a series of Times' profiles of turning points in the mayoral candidates' lives.

With the Oscars telecast airing on Sunday, Hollywood is preparing for the biggest weekend of the year. There won't be as much to celebrate at the box office, however, as two new films are expected to have lackluster debuts. "Snitch," an action film starring the beefy Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, is expected to start off with an underwhelming $12 million, according to those who have seen prerelease audience surveys. That means the picture will have to compete for the No. 1 spot with "Identity Thief," the Melissa McCarthy comedy that is still doing brisk business as it enters its third weekend in theaters.

JERUSALEM -- Film producer Yoram Globus was arrested for suspected tax evasion and released on bail Tuesday evening, local media reported . The Israel Tax Authority asked for Globus' arrest as part of its investigation of the veteran movie maker. According to a statement from the tax authority Wednesday, Globus withdrew more than $7.3 million from two of his companies in 2005 and failed to declare it as income. Tax authorities calculated the interest on the resulting tax debt that has accumulated over the years at more than $4 million.

The federal obscenity prosecution of Los Angeles fetish film producer and distributor Ira Isaacs ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors deadlocked on charges that the filmmaker produced, sold and transported obscene material. The panel deliberated for about a day after watching four films created or distributed by Isaacs, whose Internet-based business specialized in a niche of the pornography industry that included scatology and bestiality. The films, two of which Isaacs directed and appeared in, made up the bulk of the three-day trial last week.

Nat Cohen, 82, the Cockney butcher's son who became the movie executive behind such hits as "Darling" and "Murder on the Orient Express." Cohen entered films at age 25 and rose to become chairman and chief executive of EMI, Britain's largest film producer in the 1970s. Under his leadership, EMI produced a series of madcap box office hits with names such as "Carry On, Sergeant" and "Carry On, Nurse."

When "The Avengers" hit theaters in China last May, the same weekend it opened in the U.S., moviegoers there were bombarded with advertisements featuring Iron Man and the Hulk. Chinese audiences packed cinemas, buying some $90 million worth of tickets and helping make the superhero movie the top-grossing film worldwide in 2012. This weekend, the most successful Chinese film of 2012 will arrive in American theaters - but more than six weeks after its Chinese debut, and with considerably less fanfare.

Hunched over a desk in his spartan Westwood apartment, David Klawans squints at his computer monitor and knits his brow in concentration. "I'm perusing," he says. His eyes dart between headlines almost indecipherable on a Web page displaying about 800 stamp-sized images of newspapers from 90 different countries. "Two kids running? What's that?" he exclaims before clicking on a photo. "Oh, it's refugees. Whatever. Moving on. " SAG 2013: Winners | Quotes | Photo Booth |  Red carpet | Backstage | Best & Worst Nearly every day, for upward of 10-hour stretches, the independent film producer speed-reads police blogs, articles from RSS feeds and niche-interest journals in dogged pursuit of an elusive prize: a story on which to base his next movie.