James Delahunty
27 Apr 2007 19:21
Former White House aide and former president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Jack Valenti, has died aged 85. He had been at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore for several weeks after suffering a stroke in March and died of complications from the stroke at his Washington, D.C., home on Thursday. "In a sometimes unreasonable business, Jack Valenti was a giant voice of reason," Steven Spielberg said in a statement.
Spielberg added: "He was the greatest ambassador Hollywood has ever known, and I will value his wisdom and friendship for all time." When it comes to movies in the digital age, Valenti comes up regularly in controversial debates. In 1998, he lobbied for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), predicting that the Internet could become a popular venue for copyright infringement and cause damage to the Industry.
Valenti also made headlines in the 2003 Oscar Screener debate, in which sending screener copies of movies to critics and voters in various awards shows was banned. While Valenti heavily defended the ban to protect against Internet piracy, he backed down in 2004 to avoid a lawsuit being filed against the MPAA. However, some of Valenti's most famous work with the industry goes back a few years.
Valenti was ridiculed a lot for saying in 1982 to a congressional panel: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Of course, that prediction proved to be false and came back to haunt Valenti in recent years. Valenti also created the MPAA film rating system in 1968.
"Jack was a showman, a gentleman, an orator, and a passionate champion of this country, its movies, and the enduring freedoms that made both so important to this world," Dan Glickman, Valenti's successor at the MPAA, said in a statement.
Source:
Forbes