Marvin Levy

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Marvin Levy (born November 16, 1928 in Manhattan ) is an American marketing and PR specialist who worked for Steven Spielberg as a marketer for a long time .

At the end of 2018, he was the first marketer to be awarded an honorary Oscar .

Life

Levy graduated from New York University in 1949 and started his career in New York City . Actually wanting to go into the advertising industry, he got a job at a radio station, for which he collected questions and answers for a quiz show. Soon after, he became an editor for the early talk show format Tex and Jinx . Due to the cancellation of appropriations, he was indeed released, but got a letter with which he successfully at the New York office of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer "in the Department of advertising, publicity and exploitation " ( " advertising, public relations and utilization / exploitation " see also exploitation film) applied. He was given the job of promoting the studio's films in the New York area and running star promotional campaigns locally, including the Oscar-winning films Ben Hur and Gigi .

In 1962, due to the slack in Hollywood, Marvin Levy moved to the PR company Blowitz, Thomas and Canton (BTC), one of the most important PR focal points outside of the Hollywood studio system. BTC broke up in 1974; Levy moved to Cinerama and soon moved to the west coast. Because of a company merger with American International Pictures , which operated the film marketing itself, and the associated threat of job loss, Levy, who now wanted to stay on the west coast, switched to Columbia Pictures in 1975 . With the marketing of big films such as Taxi Driver (1976), Dieiefe (1977) and Kramer versus Kramer (1979), he quickly worked his way up the hierarchy. One of the productions he marketed at the time was Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Steven Spielberg's first film after his breakthrough success Jaws .

Steven Spielberg and Marvin Levy got on so well that Spielberg relied more and more on Levy's advice in the years that followed. Levy, 18 years his senior, became a father figure for Spielberg. In 1982, Spielberg was at its zenith in Hollywood, Levy switched to Spielberg's own production company Amblin Entertainment to represent it exclusively. He was Head of Marketing and Public Relations at Amblin for twelve years. When Spielberg founded DreamWorks with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in 1994 , Levy moved there.

Oscar-winning films that Levy was primarily responsible for marketing include Schindler's List , American Beauty , Gladiator , Saving Private Ryan , A Beautiful Mind , Munich , Companions , Lincoln , Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator , The Publisher , Jurassic Park, and Back to the Future .

In 1994 Levy was awarded the Les Mason Prize , the highest honor awarded by the Local 600 International Cinematographers Guild . On November 18, 2018, he was awarded the Honorary Oscar (officially Governors Award ).

Levy married his wife, with whom he has two sons, on May 25, 1952.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lindsey Bahr: Honorary Oscar recipient Marvin Levy can't believe his luck. In: AP News. November 15, 2018, accessed January 16, 2019 .
  2. ^ Scott Feinberg: Governors Awards: By Honoring Marvin Levy, Academy Recognizes Its Debt to PR Experts. In: The Hollywood Reporter. November 17, 2018, accessed January 16, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Levy, Marvin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American marketing and PR specialist
DATE OF BIRTH November 16, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Manhattan