Sidney Sheinberg
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Sidney "Sid" Jay Sheinberg (born 1935, Corpus Christi, Texas) is an American entertainment executive. He is married to actress Lorraine Gary.
Currently, he runs the Bubble Factory Studios, an independent production company of film projects. Prior to his work with The Bubble Factory, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer at MCA under Lew Wasserman. Sheinberg is credited with discovering director Steven Spielberg, hiring him into the Revue-MCA/Universal Television division, which he ran.
In 1955, Sid Sheinberg completed a four-year program in three years at Columbia College and subsequently, attended The University of Texas School of Law. Although Sid was second in his class, in 1956 he transferred to Columbia Law School, where he was both a Harlan Fiske Stone and a James Kent Scholar.
In the summer of 1958, he arrived in California where he accepted a teaching position at UCLA School of Law. In 1959 while awaiting the results of his California Bar Examination, Sid joined the legal department of Revue Productions, MCA's former television subsidiary, and began his career in the entertainment industry.
In June 1973, Sheinberg was elected President and Chief Operating officer of MCA, Inc. At that time, he was 38 years old. During the years of his tenure, Universal Pictures, a division of MCA, Inc., released the highest-grossing films of each of the past three decades, beginning with Jaws in 1975, following with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982 and concluding with Jurassic Park in 1993. It is no coincidence that Steven Spielberg, a filmmaker whose career began with Sid's assistance, was the director of each of these blockbuster hits.
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[edit] Honors
Sid not only serves on the National Board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews but is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Pitzer College (one of the Claremont group of colleges), serves as Vice Chairman of the Museum of Television and Radio, is a member of the Board of The American Jewish Committee, the Board of Research To Prevent Blindness and the Board of Trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Additionally, Sid serves on The National Board of Human Rights Watch and is co-founder of The Children's Action Network and Hollywood Supports.
He received Columbia College's John Jay Award in 1981 for Distinguished Professional Achievement, the American Jewish Committees Human Relations Award in 1982, the National Conference of Christians and Jews Humanitarian Award in 1983, and Pioneer Of The Year Award in 1984 from the Motion Picture Pioneers, as well as the coveted Chevalier De L'Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres in 1984 bestowed by the French Government. In 1987, he received the DeWitt Carter Reddick Award at the University of Texas in Austin, and in 1989 he was named a Lifetime Honorary Member of the Directors Guild of America, for his decades of service on the DGA-AMPTP Creative Rights Committee. He received the AIDS Project Los Angeles Commitment to Life Award in 1991, the Medal of Honor from the American Academy of Achievement in 1994 and the GLADD Award in 1996.
Along with his wife, Lorraine, Sid Sheinberg received the 1995 Simon Wiesenthal Centers Humanitarian Award.
Sheinberg Place, named for veteran studio executive Sid Sheinberg, was dedicated Monday, February 4th, 2008, at a ceremony honoring the former studio chief. Among those in attendance were Dreamworks SKG founders David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Spielberg.
[edit] Famous Sheinberg Cases
Sheinberg was notorious for attempting to edit and make odd suggestions for Universal-distributed films and was sometimes successful. His attempt to build a new record label, Infinity Records, also produced huge losses for MCA during the late 1970's.
[edit] Back to the Future
While Robert Zemeckis started post-production for the classic time- travel film, Sheinberg contributed various odd notes. According to Sheinberg, the film should have been called Space Zombies from Pluto, as this is the title of the comic book that the Peabody family have that makes time-traveler Marty McFly look like an alien. To correspond with this title, Sheinberg wanted Marty, while convincing his past father George to take Marty's past mother to the dance by dressing up as "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan", to say he was from the planet Pluto. Thanks to a note from studio exec and Zemeckis's friend Steven Spielberg, which detailed Spielberg thanking Sheinberg for such a humorous note, Sheinberg laid off the issue.[citation needed]
[edit] Brazil
Sheinberg's most famous intervention was with Terry Gilliam's Brazil. After a test screening with Universal producers, many thought it would not be a commercial success in the US, even though the film did well in the UK. Sheinberg thought the movie would have potential if edited to fit the theme of "love conquers all". Gilliam refused to make the changes, but Sheinberg, along with a team of editors, did start to edit the film. After going public with this editing problem, Gilliam put much pressure on Sheinberg to let Gilliam release his own US version of the film. Sheinberg's 94 minute long "love conquers all" version of the film was put aside for a 132 minute cut of Gilliam's. Sheinberg's version, however, can be seen on Brazil's boxed set DVD.
[edit] Legend
Sheinberg felt that the Ridley Scott fantasy film would have a stronger box office potential with teenagers if 20 minutes were cut to trim the running time down to roughly an hour and a half and the Jerry Goldsmith score was replaced by one featuring Tangerine Dream. The film was a huge bomb at the box office. The DVD features both cuts of the film with almost all fans preferring Ridley Scott's original director's cut[citation needed].
[edit] Famous Sheinberg Litigation
Sheinberg was a central figure for the plaintiff in a 1983 lawsuit brought by Universal City Studios, Inc. against Nintendo Co., Ltd. According to Nintendo's attorney Howard Lincoln (later Chairman of Nintendo of America), Sheinberg was, in fact, attempting to extort money from Nintendo and several other game companies by asserting a copyright in which Universal did not own and had already argued as such in a previous case. Allegedly during a previous meeting, Sheinberg had informed Lincoln that he believed in litigation as a "profit center". During the trial he was questioned about this belief, although Sheinberg pleaded ignorance.
This accusation was apparently believed by US District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet, who ruled in Nintendo's favor, ordered Universal to pay Nintendo's expenses in the amount of 1.8 million US dollars, and even used Sheinberg's alleged quote in his ruling. This decision was upheld twice on appeal, during which Sheinberg and Universal were similarly rebuked.
The conversations between Sid Sheinberg, Howard Lincoln, and other relevant parties are detailed quite extensively in David Sheff's book Game Over.
- Further information: Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.
