LANSING, SHERRY LEE

LANSING, SHERRY LEE (1944– ), U.S. entertainment executive and producer. Lansing was born in Chicago, Illinois, to real estate developer David and Margot (née Heimann) Duhl. Her mother, a German Jew, had escaped Nazi Germany at 17. When Lansing was nine, her father died after a sudden heart attack. Her mother took over her husband's real estate business and later married businessman Norton Lansing, who adopted Sherry. Lansing majored in English and math at Northwestern University, but also studied acting. She graduated with honors in 1962, and after her marriage to a medical student in 1963 moved to Los Angeles, where Lansing taught math at a public school in Watts from 1966 until 1969. After her divorce in 1968, Lansing worked as a model for Max Factor, appeared in commercials, and acted in the films Loving (1970) and Rio Lobo (1970). In 1970 she joined Wagner International as a script reader and was later promoted to executive story editor. In 1974, she became executive in charge of West Coast development at Talent Associates. One year later she went to mgm as a story editor, later rising to vice president of creative affairs. In 1977, she moved to Columbia Pictures, where she served as vice president of production. After two hit films, The China Syndrome (1979) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Lansing left for Twentieth Century Fox in 1980, becoming the first woman to serve as president of production at any Hollywood studio. However, Lansing quickly found that she lacked freedom to approve projects herself. Lansing left in 1982 to establish her own production company, Jaffe-Lansing Productions, with director Stanley Jaffe. Her first film as executive producer was Racing with the Moon (1984). Lansing and Jaffe produced seven films for Paramount, including Fatal Attraction (1987), The Accused (1988), and Black Rain (1989). In 1990, she married French Connection and Exorcist director William *Friedkin. After Jaffe took over as president of Paramount Communications, the pair disbanded their production company but Lansing continued to produce for Paramount with her new company, Sherry Lansing Productions. In 1992, Jaffe named Lansing chair and ceo of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group. Lansing produced Indecent Proposal (1993), which grossed $100 million in the United States, as well as such hits as Forrest Gump (1994), Braveheart (1995), Titanic (1997), and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Lansing, a role model for female executives in the film industry, received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996. She resigned her position with Paramount in 2005 and returned to producing with a prequel to Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987).

[Adam Wills (2^nd ed.)]