Mark Seiler, the previous president of RKO Footage and Hemdale Movies and CEO of Capella Movies, died July 7 after a protracted battle with Parkinson’s and issues from COVID-19. He was 75.
A veteran studio govt, Seiler’s lengthy profession on the helm of three important movie financing and manufacturing firms included the discharge of a slew of profitable and critically acclaimed movies together with Meryl Streep’s Lots, Sigourney Weaver’s Half Moon Road and the conflict film Hamburger Hill at RKO and the comedies Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Masks and Austin Powers: Worldwide Man of Thriller at Capella.
Mark Edwin Seiler was born in Glen Cove, New York, on Could 2, 1948, to Carl Seiler and Madelyn (née Hughes) Seiler. He was raised in Sands Level, Lengthy Island, the place he attended Buckley Day Faculty, Choate Rosemary Corridor and Paul D. Schreiber Excessive Faculty earlier than graduating from Tulane College with an economics diploma.
After graduating, Seiler discovered himself in Hollywood and went to work for RKO Footage, a revival of the storied Hollywood studio model and the film and video subsidiary of RKO Normal Inc., which itself was a unit of Gencorp Inc.
Having spent a while as president of RKO Movie Group, a 37-year-old Seiler was named RKO Footage president in July 1985, changing C. Robert Manby. Seiler satisfied his good friend, the lawyer Jerry Offsay, to stop as a associate on the Los Angeles legislation agency Loeb & Loeb to come back to RKO and take over the movie group.
“He gave me that shot to go from legislation to inventive on religion. I hope he all the time knew how grateful I used to be for altering my life [by] taking me to RKO,” Offsay stated in a press release. Offsay would later change into president of programming for Showtime Networks and now runs his personal firm, Parkchester Footage.
Seiler was well-known for his talent-spotting talents, each inventive and govt expertise. As a younger exec at RKO, Seiler had a significant function within the casting of Denzel Washington within the George Segal dramedy Carbon Copy after seeing the younger actor’s theater work. The 1981 movie would change into Washington’s characteristic debut. In one other notable instance, Seiler, together with Offsay, picked the younger Don Cheadle, Dylan McDermott, Courtney B. Vance and Steven Weber for the forged of Hamburger Hill.
In addition to recognizing Offsay’s abilities, Seiler additionally noticed the promise of Marc Platt early on. Platt would go on to supply the movies Legally Blonde, Woman on a Prepare, Bridge of Spies, La La Land and Campus Man and a bunch of wildly profitable theatrical productions together with the Depraved musical.
“He was such an affect on me in my early days in Hollywood — he noticed issues in me that I’m undecided if I noticed in myself. He guided me along with his knowledge and instilled a confidence in me and a powerful sense of self. I’ll eternally be grateful to him for his mentorship and friendship throughout these early years,” stated Platt in a press release.
After working for RKO for a lot of the Nineteen Eighties, Seiler grew to become CEO of Capella Movies within the early Nineteen Nineties. The German-backed movie financing firm had a run of success backing comedies throughout the decade Seiler was on the helm together with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994), 4 Weddings and a Funeral (1994), The Masks (1994) and Austin Powers: Worldwide Man of Thriller (1997). However there was additionally extra critically acclaimed dramatic fare that the corporate was concerned in, together with The Shadow (1994) with Alec Baldwin and Paul Newman’s No one’s Idiot (1995).
Within the late ’90s, Seiler moved away from movie financing and manufacturing and have become deeply concerned with anti-piracy expertise. He fashioned a partnership referred to as Geocodex that specialised in geo-encryption, first within the movie enterprise, after which in different fields.
Seiler is survived by his fiancée, the actress Morgan Fairchild, his sisters, Carolyn Seiler Hehir and Amy Seiler, and his brother, Scott Seiler.
A memorial is being deliberate for early December. In lieu of flowers, the household request that individuals contemplate a donation to The Michael J. Fox Basis for Parkinson’s Analysis.