Roger Birnbaum (born November 14, 1950) is an American film, television, and executive producer.[2][3]
Early life
Birnbaum was born to a Jewish family[4] in Teaneck, New Jersey,[5] the son of Arlene (née Steinlauf) and Norman Birnbaum.[4] His father was a World War II veteran who went into the embroidery business with his father after the war, and used his profits in 1967 to build the Stonehenge, a residential building in New Jersey.[4] Birnbaum graduated from Teaneck High School in 1968[5] and attended the University of Denver.[6]
Career
Birnbaum started out in the music industry at Arista Records working under Clive Davis. A&M Records brought him out to Hollywood becoming its West Coast A&R executive, where he switch over to film. While working at film, he was appointed president of Fair Dinkum Productions, which was headed by Henry Winkler, who supervised Young Sherlock Holmes and The Sure Thing.[7] He worked at United Artists, Guber-Peters Co. (president in 1989) then 20th Century Fox.[8] He was president of production at 20th Century Fox by 1992.[9]
Caravan Pictures was founded by Birnbaum and Joe Roth as a production company at Disney in 1992 to fill the Disney Studios' then-yearly 50 to 60 production and distribution slots.[9] Birnbaum previously left Caravan at the prompting of then Disney studio chief Joe Roth as Disney was cutting its yearly production output and shutting down Caravan. In August 1998, Birnbaum with Gary Barber, former vice chairman and COO of Morgan Creek Productions founded Spyglass Entertainment.[10]
On December 20, 2010, after the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had emerged from bankruptcy, Birnbaum and Barber became co-Chairs and co-CEOs of the studio.[11][12] On October 3, 2012, Birnbaum announced his intention to exit his role as an MGM executive and return to "hands-on" producing. He will remain with the studio to produce films on "an exclusive basis".[13]
He has since founded four production companies, Pin High Productions,[8] Cave 76 Productions,[14] with Eli Roth, Arts District Entertainment[15] and with Mark Kimsey, Electromagnetic Productions.[16] By September 8, 2016, his exclusivity with MGM had ended.[8]
Personal life
His first wife was Pamela West;[17] they had one daughter Claire Birnbaum Block (born 1987).[18] He married then-restaurant guest relations manager Leslie Lopez in 2013.[19][20] Birnbaum and Lopez divorced in 2019. He was previously in a seven-year relationship with actress Teri Garr.[21]
^ abSpelling, Ian (June 1, 2011). "Let the Lion Roar: Teaneck native Roger Birnbaum shines brightly in Hollywood". (201) magazine; Bergen.com. Retrieved October 6, 2011. Much of the producer's touch, the instinct that drives Birnbaum to financially back a script or to help nurture a pitch into a script and then into a feature, and his overall taste as a filmmaker, can be traced back to his formative years in Teaneck. He was raised there and attended Teaneck High School.
^"Advisory Board Biographies". ucsb.edu. Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television and New Media, University of California, Santa Barbara. Archived from the original on March 5, 2008. Retrieved March 6, 2008.
^Agard, Chancellor (December 20, 2010). "MGM out of bankruptcy". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on September 6, 2014. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
^"Going Steady". issuu.com; C Magazine. January 1, 2013. p. 114. Retrieved January 29, 2018. Claire Birnbaum and Eric Block ... husband and wife... Roger Birnbaum (then co-CEO of MGM) gave away his little girl...
