Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing (born Sherry Lee Duhl; July 31, 1944) is an American former film studio executive. The chairwoman of the Universal Music Group board of directors, she was the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures[1] and president of production at 20th Century Fox prior to her retirement. From 1999 to 2022, she was on the University of California Board of Regents. In 2005, she became the first female movie studio head to place hand and foot prints at the Grauman's Chinese Theater.[2][3] In 2001, she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in the US by Ladies' Home Journal,[4] and The Hollywood Reporter named her number 1 on its Power 100 list numerous times.[5]
Sherry Lansing
- Film studio executive
- actress
1968–2008
Early life[edit]
Lansing was born Sherry Lee Duhl in Chicago, Illinois, to Margaret Heimann and real estate investor David Duhl. Her mother fled from Nazi Germany in 1937, at the age of 17. After her father died when Lansing was nine, her mother remarried to Norton S. Lansing.[6][7] She was raised in a Jewish household.[8][9]
Lansing attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and graduated in 1962. In 1966, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Northwestern University and graduated cum laude. She was a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority.[10]
Career[edit]
Career in production[edit]
Lansing took a job with MGM as head script reader. She then became VP of Production at Columbia Pictures and oversaw two highly-successful films, The China Syndrome and Kramer vs. Kramer, both released in 1979.[12] Her work at Columbia Pictures eventually led to an appointment with 20th Century Fox in 1980, at age 35, as the first female production president of a major studio.[12][13][14] She resigned in December 1982[14] and became a partner with Stanley R. Jaffe to form Jaffe-Lansing Productions based at Paramount Pictures.[13] The company released a consistent string of minor hits through Paramount before achieving box-office success with Fatal Attraction in 1987, for which Jaffe and Lansing received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture the following year.
The partnership also produced The Accused (1988) starring Jodie Foster, about rape and its impact on a victim's life. The film featured a graphic rape scene and was highly controversial when released. Made with a small budget of $6 million, it grossed over $37 million worldwide, becoming a box office hit as well as receiving critical praise with Foster scoring the Academy Award for Best Actress.[15]
Other Jaffe-Lansing productions include Black Rain (1989), starring Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, and Ken Takakura, as well as School Ties (1992), starring Brendan Fraser. On her own, Lansing produced the very successful Indecent Proposal (1993), starring Robert Redford, Demi Moore, and Woody Harrelson.
Personal life[edit]
Lansing married fellow student Michael Brownstein in 1967 while attending Northwestern University. They divorced in 1970.[22] She was married to director William Friedkin from 1991 until his death in 2023.[23][24]
Lansing and former MGM studio head James T. Aubrey were struck by a car while crossing Wilshire Boulevard in the mid-1970s. Both were badly hurt and Lansing had to use crutches for a year and a half. Aubrey nursed her back to health. "He came every day. He would say, 'You're not going to limp.' My own mother and father couldn't have given me more support," she told Variety in 2004.