Laura Ziskin

American film and television producer (1950–2011)

Laura Ellen Ziskin (March 3, 1950 – June 12, 2011) was an American film producer. She was the executive producer of Pretty Woman (1990) and producer of Spider Man (2002), Spider Man 2 (2004), Spider Man 3 (2007), and The Amazing Spider Man (2012; posthumous credit). She was the first woman to produce the Academy Awards telecast alone, producing the 74th Academy Awards (2002) and the 79th Academy Awards (2007).

Ziskin was born and raised in a Russian Jewish family in the San Fernando Valley, California, the daughter of Jay Ziskin and Elaine Edelman. Her father was a psychologist and lawyer who died of prostate cancer, aged 77, on June 14, 1997. After graduating from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1973, As an independent producer, Ziskin produced the thriller No Way Out (1987) for Orion Pictures. Ziskin and partner Ian Sander produced two films featuring Dennis Quaid, the 1988 remake of D. O. A. and Taylor Hackford's Everybody's All American (also 1988).

Ziskin's largest success came with the release of the comedy Pretty Woman (1990), starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, on which Ziskin served as executive producer for Touchstone Pictures. Ziskin's next project, What About Bob? (1991), proved stressful. She and star Bill Murray had spirited disagreements during production which involved Murray pushing her into a lake and breaking her sunglasses. Neither that film nor The Doctor (also 1991) were anywhere near as strong at the box office as Pretty Woman. A switch to Columbia resulted in Stephen Frears' Hero (1992), a loose remake of Meet John Doe (1941), for which Ziskin both produced and supplied the story. Ziskin directed her first short film Oh, What a Day! 1914, which was released in 1994, and produced the Nicole Kidman tour de force To Die For (1995), under the banner of Laura Ziskin Productions.

By the time that last film was in release, Ziskin had been appointed president of Fox 2000, one of several offshoots 20th Century Fox developed to speed up their production and distribution. Among the films released were Edward Zwick's Gulf War drama Courage Under Fire (1996) and the romantic comedy One Fine Day (also 1996) and Pat O'Connor's Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and the big budget disaster film Volcano (also 1997). Ziskin and Tom Rothman helped develop the script for The English Patient (1996) before studio head Bill Mechanic returned the rights to director Anthony Minghella, who then got it produced and distributed through Miramax. Ziskin executive produced As Good as It Gets (1997). The film received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Its stars, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, received the leading role Oscars in the acting categories.

After nearly five years in the same job, Ziskin resigned from Fox 2000 in November 1999 and within a month had a production deal at Columbia Pictures. After serving as the first solo female producer of an Academy Awards telecast in 2002, Ziskin returned to the big screen with the feature version of Spider Man (2002). The film was released in early May to widespread acclaim from critics and became the highest grossing film of its year. The success of the film led to two sequels, Spider Man 2 (2004) and Spider Man 3 (2007). In 2002, Ziskin was awarded the Crystal Award by Women in Film for her efforts at expanding the role of women in the entertainment industry.

In February 2004, Ziskin was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, a disease doctors had repeatedly missed previously because of the diffuse type of cancer she had. On May 28, 2008, Ziskin, along with Katie Couric, Sherry Lansing, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, the Noreen Fraser Foundation and Ellen Ziffren, created the charitable organization Stand Up to Cancer.

Ziskin died of breast cancer at her home in Santa Monica, California, on June 12, 2011, aged 61. Her final films were the franchise reboot, The Amazing Spider Man (2012) and The Butler (2013). She died a few weeks after principal filming ended on The Amazing Spider Man but three weeks before filming began on The Butler. In 2012, the Athena Film Festival created an award to be given in her honor: The Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award is given annually to a woman in the film industry whose leadership demonstrates vision and courage and sets a standard for other women to emulate.

When she was about 27, Ziskin married writer Julian Barry, relocating to Connecticut to help him raise his three children from a previous marriage. The couple later had a daughter, Julia Barry. Ziskin was married to writer Alvin Sargent from 2010 until her death in 2011 from complications of breast cancer.

She was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.