George Shapiro, the deeply respected talent manager, producer and co-founder of Shapiro/West & Associates, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 91.
Along with his partner and childhood friend Howard West, Shapiro was personal manager to comedy greats Jerry Seinfeld, Andy Kaufman and Carl Reiner, among others. He and West would go on to executive produce Seinfeld, one of the top comedy series of all time.
Born in New York, Shapiro spent summers during his teenage years as a lifeguard at the Tamiment Resort in the Poconos, where he met performers like Dick Shawn, Pat Carroll and Carol Burnett, singer Barbara Cook, and choreographer Herb Ross. That’s when he also got to know talent agents.
“These guys came up … I didn’t even know what an agent was, but they came to see the show, to talk to the girls, talk to the comedians,...
Along with his partner and childhood friend Howard West, Shapiro was personal manager to comedy greats Jerry Seinfeld, Andy Kaufman and Carl Reiner, among others. He and West would go on to executive produce Seinfeld, one of the top comedy series of all time.
Born in New York, Shapiro spent summers during his teenage years as a lifeguard at the Tamiment Resort in the Poconos, where he met performers like Dick Shawn, Pat Carroll and Carol Burnett, singer Barbara Cook, and choreographer Herb Ross. That’s when he also got to know talent agents.
“These guys came up … I didn’t even know what an agent was, but they came to see the show, to talk to the girls, talk to the comedians,...
- 5/28/2022
- by Lynette Rice
- Deadline Film + TV
What’s the deal with this new “Seinfeld” promo? Oh, it’s footage shot by Jerry Seinfeld and Comedy Central to promote the iconic sitcom’s reruns moving exclusively to Comedy Central from their longtime home on TBS this October.
Though it had been known since 2019 that ViacomCBS’ MTV Entertainment had acquired the cable rights to the show beginning this fall in a deal with Sony Pictures Television, Wednesday is when the company announced that Comedy Central is the only one of its platforms that will air “Seinfeld,” thus becoming its exclusive linear home.
Watch the teaser, featuring Jerry Seinfeld playing “Seinfeld’s” Jerry Seinfeld, accepting a delivery of 180 episodes of the show to “Comedy Central,” aka his apartment.
Netflix has the streaming rights to “Seinfeld” and will begin offering the 180-episode library on Oct. 1, which is more than a week before Comedy Central will debut the show with the...
Though it had been known since 2019 that ViacomCBS’ MTV Entertainment had acquired the cable rights to the show beginning this fall in a deal with Sony Pictures Television, Wednesday is when the company announced that Comedy Central is the only one of its platforms that will air “Seinfeld,” thus becoming its exclusive linear home.
Watch the teaser, featuring Jerry Seinfeld playing “Seinfeld’s” Jerry Seinfeld, accepting a delivery of 180 episodes of the show to “Comedy Central,” aka his apartment.
Netflix has the streaming rights to “Seinfeld” and will begin offering the 180-episode library on Oct. 1, which is more than a week before Comedy Central will debut the show with the...
- 9/15/2021
- by Jennifer Maas
- The Wrap
ViacomCBS has unveiled its launch plans for the Seinfeld library, which will leave its long-time home on TBS Oct. 1 to move to Comedy Central.
Viacom acquired the exclusive cable syndication rights to Seinfeld in a deal with Sony Pictures Television in Sept. 2019, before the company’s merger with CBS was finalized and the cable group was restructured. At the time, Viacom announced that Seinfeld would air across Viacom’s entertainment brands, including Comedy Central, Paramount Network and TV Land, with an intention to also add Pop to the mix post-merger. Two years later, with a new leadership at the four networks, now part of the MTV Entertainment Group, the plan has changed and Seinfeld will have a singular home on Comedy Central similar to its decades-long association with one Turner network, TBS.
Seinfeld will launch on Comedy Central Oct. 9 with a countdown of the top favorite episodes as voted on by fans.
Viacom acquired the exclusive cable syndication rights to Seinfeld in a deal with Sony Pictures Television in Sept. 2019, before the company’s merger with CBS was finalized and the cable group was restructured. At the time, Viacom announced that Seinfeld would air across Viacom’s entertainment brands, including Comedy Central, Paramount Network and TV Land, with an intention to also add Pop to the mix post-merger. Two years later, with a new leadership at the four networks, now part of the MTV Entertainment Group, the plan has changed and Seinfeld will have a singular home on Comedy Central similar to its decades-long association with one Turner network, TBS.
Seinfeld will launch on Comedy Central Oct. 9 with a countdown of the top favorite episodes as voted on by fans.
- 9/15/2021
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
The summer of George may have passed them by, but at least “Seinfeld” arrives on Netflix well ahead of Festivus, or television fans may have had a lot of grievances to air this year. All 180 episodes of the classic 1990s sitcom are launching Oct. 1 on the streaming giant.
“Larry [David] and I are enormously grateful to Netflix for taking this chance on us. It takes a lot of guts to trust two schmucks who literally had zero experience in television when we made this thing,” said Jerry Seinfeld in a joke statement. “We really got carried away, I guess. I didn’t realize we made so many of them. Hope to recoup god knows how many millions it must have taken to do. But worth all the work if people like it. Crazy project.”
Netflix acquired the rights to “Seinfeld” in 2019 in an expensive five-year deal with Sony Pictures Television, which...
“Larry [David] and I are enormously grateful to Netflix for taking this chance on us. It takes a lot of guts to trust two schmucks who literally had zero experience in television when we made this thing,” said Jerry Seinfeld in a joke statement. “We really got carried away, I guess. I didn’t realize we made so many of them. Hope to recoup god knows how many millions it must have taken to do. But worth all the work if people like it. Crazy project.”
Netflix acquired the rights to “Seinfeld” in 2019 in an expensive five-year deal with Sony Pictures Television, which...
- 9/1/2021
- by Danielle Turchiano
- Variety Film + TV
“Seinfeld” will be available to stream again starting in October, Netflix announced on Wednesday.
All 180 episodes of the classic NBC sitcom will be available on the streaming service starting on Oct. 1, making good on a high-profile streaming rights deal announced all the way back in 2019.
When Netflix and Sony Pictures Television struck the deal to make Netflix the streaming home for “Seinfeld,” it was a big win for the streamer at a time when other media companies were shelling out big money to buy valuable library content back from Netflix in anticipation of launching competing services. Two of Netflix’s most popular titles at the time, “Friends” and “The Office,” were yanked off Netflix and have since become cornerstone content for HBO Max and Peacock, respectively.
Hulu previously had the rights to “Seinfeld,” streaming the show from 2015 until earlier this year.
Created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, “Seinfeld” also stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus,...
All 180 episodes of the classic NBC sitcom will be available on the streaming service starting on Oct. 1, making good on a high-profile streaming rights deal announced all the way back in 2019.
When Netflix and Sony Pictures Television struck the deal to make Netflix the streaming home for “Seinfeld,” it was a big win for the streamer at a time when other media companies were shelling out big money to buy valuable library content back from Netflix in anticipation of launching competing services. Two of Netflix’s most popular titles at the time, “Friends” and “The Office,” were yanked off Netflix and have since become cornerstone content for HBO Max and Peacock, respectively.
Hulu previously had the rights to “Seinfeld,” streaming the show from 2015 until earlier this year.
Created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, “Seinfeld” also stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus,...
- 9/1/2021
- by Reid Nakamura
- The Wrap
Just days after Netflix landed global streaming rights to Seinfeld, currently on Hulu, the classic NBC sitcom also has found a new cable home. Viacom has acquired the exclusive cable syndication rights to Seinfeld in a deal with Sony Pictures Television.
Beginning in October 2021, the full library of all 180 Seinfeld episodes will leave their long-time cable home on TBS and will air across Viacom’s entertainment brands, including Comedy Central, Paramount Network and TV Land. Upon the completion of the CBS-Viacom merger, CBS-owned Pop TV also is expected to air Seinfeld reruns when they become available .Additionally, catch-up episodes will be available through Viacom brands via authenticated video on demand, websites and apps.
No terms of the deal have been disclosed. The current cable syndication deal for Seinfeld at TBS is believed to be paying about $350,000 – $400,000 an episode. Industry sources speculated that the Viacom pact may be worth in...
Beginning in October 2021, the full library of all 180 Seinfeld episodes will leave their long-time cable home on TBS and will air across Viacom’s entertainment brands, including Comedy Central, Paramount Network and TV Land. Upon the completion of the CBS-Viacom merger, CBS-owned Pop TV also is expected to air Seinfeld reruns when they become available .Additionally, catch-up episodes will be available through Viacom brands via authenticated video on demand, websites and apps.
No terms of the deal have been disclosed. The current cable syndication deal for Seinfeld at TBS is believed to be paying about $350,000 – $400,000 an episode. Industry sources speculated that the Viacom pact may be worth in...
- 9/22/2019
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
Howard West, longtime business partner of fellow Seinfeld producer George Shapiro, has died. He was 84. West and Shapiro had one of the longest friendships and business relationships in the history of Hollywood. The two boys from the Bronx had known each other since grammar school and then went on to work together for 41 years at personal management/production company Shapiro/West. "I first met Howie in the schoolyard of Public School 80 in the Bronx when we were eight…...
- 12/6/2015
- Deadline TV
Howard West, longtime business partner of fellow Seinfeld producer George Shapiro, has died. He was 84. West and Shapiro, (pictured left and right in images above and below) had one of the longest friendships and business relationships in the history of Hollywood. The two boys from the Bronx had known each other since grammar school and then went on to work together for 41 years at personal management/production company Shapiro/West. "I first met Howie in the schoolyard…...
- 12/6/2015
- Deadline
Welcome to "Cougar Town."
ABC has greenlighted a single-camera comedy pilot from "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence to star "Friends" alumna Courteney Cox.
Produced by ABC Studios and penned by Lawrence and "Scrubs" writer Kevin Biegel, "Cougar Town" centers on an attractive, newly single 40-year-old mom (Cox) with a 17-year-old son.
"Forty-year-old women on TV are so beautiful and perfect and wrinkle-free," said Lawrence, who first worked with Cox when he was a writer on "Friends." "People don't do the reality of it, and there is a real comedy area about a woman who is talking about Botox, about having sex with the lights on and how her body is changing."
Lawrence and Biegel had the idea for the show for a while, and Lawrence felt that Cox, whom he describes as "comedically fearless," would be perfect for the lead. After the actress guest-starred on the opening three episodes of the upcoming season of "Scrubs,...
ABC has greenlighted a single-camera comedy pilot from "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence to star "Friends" alumna Courteney Cox.
Produced by ABC Studios and penned by Lawrence and "Scrubs" writer Kevin Biegel, "Cougar Town" centers on an attractive, newly single 40-year-old mom (Cox) with a 17-year-old son.
"Forty-year-old women on TV are so beautiful and perfect and wrinkle-free," said Lawrence, who first worked with Cox when he was a writer on "Friends." "People don't do the reality of it, and there is a real comedy area about a woman who is talking about Botox, about having sex with the lights on and how her body is changing."
Lawrence and Biegel had the idea for the show for a while, and Lawrence felt that Cox, whom he describes as "comedically fearless," would be perfect for the lead. After the actress guest-starred on the opening three episodes of the upcoming season of "Scrubs,...
- 10/30/2008
- by By Nellie Andreeva
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Andy Kaufman still haunts our collective psyche 15 years after his early death, and the spectacle of seeing Jim Carrey transform himself into Kaufman will receive deserved critical praise. But Kaufman's act remains an acquired taste, one that is off-putting to many (as the movie makes amply clear). "Man on the Moon" enters the holiday market as a sleeper that, much like a Kaufman performance, may be a break-out hit or fall very flat.
Making a movie about Kaufman is like trying to pin Jell-O to a wall. There's no way to get at the "real" Andy Kaufman because it's very possible that part of his personality never existed -- or if it did, it got lost in Kaufman's psyche. So what a team of highly talented filmmakers -- screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, director Milos Forman and Carrey -- have managed to do in "Man on the Moon" is less a biopic than an assemblage of Kaufman's greatest hits as a comic.
Here we get the most famous, infamous, outrageous, innovative and mouth-dropping stunts from one of the quirkiest careers in the annals of show business. But how audiences will respond is not easy to predict.
Kaufman never liked being called a comic. He was closer to a performance artist. He assumed a number of guises -- wrestler, immigrant, Elvis Presley, lounge singer Tony Clifton, evangelist, robot butler and fakir. But his refusal to break character -- to let audiences realize it's all a gag -- often pushed the act into an uncomfortable area where the line between reality and illusion blurred.
Kaufman's anti-comedy causes his manager and mentor, George Shapiro, played by Danny DeVito, to declare at one point, "You're insane, but you might be brilliant!"
After a gangbuster opening, in which Carrey as Kaufman introduces his movie -- easily the funniest and most original new material in the entire movie -- "Man on the Moon" struggles to tell in a conventional, linear manner the story of this most unconventional of entertainers.
The writers at some point must have abandoned any hope of explaining their hero, for they don't even make the attempt. Instead we get highlights of Kaufman's performances on stage and television and a few key moments in his life.
And a few weird scenes where Carrey's Kaufman performs in the hit TV series "Taxi" with its original cast members -- Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, Marilu Henner -- while DeVito, another series co-star, plays an entirely different character.
Forman and the writers never seem certain what part of Kaufman's life is put-on and what is not -- the insane vs. brilliant conundrum -- so they play everything straight, leaving the audience to decide.
It's impossible -- repeat, impossible -- to imagine any other actor in the role of Kaufman. Carrey so invades the personality and physical being of Kaufman as to perform a virtual act of transmigration. It's eerie and wonderful and the main reason to see this movie.
Courtney Love, rejoining the team with whom she made "The People vs. Larry Flynt", delivers a winsome and tender portrayal of Lynne Margulies, the editor who was Kaufman's last love. (The film never mentions any of Kaufman's other love affairs.)
Paul Giamatti ably plays Bob Zmuda, Kaufman's writer and co-conspirator in his act, making him the perfect foil for Carrey -- sane, grounded and the one person who definitely understands Kaufman.
DeVito has given himself a really unenviable role as Shapiro, who is portrayed as an eternal kvetch, in scene after scene complaining to Andy about his risky avant garde act and forever trying to tone him down.
The film ultimately disappoints because it doesn't share its subject's sense of the outrageous. It's too tame and conventional. The opening credit sequence by Carrey points the way to a more free-form examination of Kaufman. But Forman et al. choose not to go there. Maybe the producers should have hired Tony Clifton to direct.
MAN ON THE MOON
Universal Pictures
Jersey Films
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Director: Milos Forman
Screenwriters: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Executive producers: George Shapiro, Howard West, Michael Hausman
Director of photography: Anastas Michos
Production designer: Patrizia Von Brandenstein
Music: R.E.M.
Co-executive producer: Bob Zmuda
Costume designer: Jeffrey Kurland
Editors: Christopher Tellefsen, Lynzee Klingman
Color/stereo
Cast:
Andy Kaufman: Jim Carrey
George Shapiro: Danny DeVito
Bob Zmuda: Paul Giamatti
Lynne Margulies: Courtney Love
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Making a movie about Kaufman is like trying to pin Jell-O to a wall. There's no way to get at the "real" Andy Kaufman because it's very possible that part of his personality never existed -- or if it did, it got lost in Kaufman's psyche. So what a team of highly talented filmmakers -- screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, director Milos Forman and Carrey -- have managed to do in "Man on the Moon" is less a biopic than an assemblage of Kaufman's greatest hits as a comic.
Here we get the most famous, infamous, outrageous, innovative and mouth-dropping stunts from one of the quirkiest careers in the annals of show business. But how audiences will respond is not easy to predict.
Kaufman never liked being called a comic. He was closer to a performance artist. He assumed a number of guises -- wrestler, immigrant, Elvis Presley, lounge singer Tony Clifton, evangelist, robot butler and fakir. But his refusal to break character -- to let audiences realize it's all a gag -- often pushed the act into an uncomfortable area where the line between reality and illusion blurred.
Kaufman's anti-comedy causes his manager and mentor, George Shapiro, played by Danny DeVito, to declare at one point, "You're insane, but you might be brilliant!"
After a gangbuster opening, in which Carrey as Kaufman introduces his movie -- easily the funniest and most original new material in the entire movie -- "Man on the Moon" struggles to tell in a conventional, linear manner the story of this most unconventional of entertainers.
The writers at some point must have abandoned any hope of explaining their hero, for they don't even make the attempt. Instead we get highlights of Kaufman's performances on stage and television and a few key moments in his life.
And a few weird scenes where Carrey's Kaufman performs in the hit TV series "Taxi" with its original cast members -- Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, Marilu Henner -- while DeVito, another series co-star, plays an entirely different character.
Forman and the writers never seem certain what part of Kaufman's life is put-on and what is not -- the insane vs. brilliant conundrum -- so they play everything straight, leaving the audience to decide.
It's impossible -- repeat, impossible -- to imagine any other actor in the role of Kaufman. Carrey so invades the personality and physical being of Kaufman as to perform a virtual act of transmigration. It's eerie and wonderful and the main reason to see this movie.
Courtney Love, rejoining the team with whom she made "The People vs. Larry Flynt", delivers a winsome and tender portrayal of Lynne Margulies, the editor who was Kaufman's last love. (The film never mentions any of Kaufman's other love affairs.)
Paul Giamatti ably plays Bob Zmuda, Kaufman's writer and co-conspirator in his act, making him the perfect foil for Carrey -- sane, grounded and the one person who definitely understands Kaufman.
DeVito has given himself a really unenviable role as Shapiro, who is portrayed as an eternal kvetch, in scene after scene complaining to Andy about his risky avant garde act and forever trying to tone him down.
The film ultimately disappoints because it doesn't share its subject's sense of the outrageous. It's too tame and conventional. The opening credit sequence by Carrey points the way to a more free-form examination of Kaufman. But Forman et al. choose not to go there. Maybe the producers should have hired Tony Clifton to direct.
MAN ON THE MOON
Universal Pictures
Jersey Films
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Director: Milos Forman
Screenwriters: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Executive producers: George Shapiro, Howard West, Michael Hausman
Director of photography: Anastas Michos
Production designer: Patrizia Von Brandenstein
Music: R.E.M.
Co-executive producer: Bob Zmuda
Costume designer: Jeffrey Kurland
Editors: Christopher Tellefsen, Lynzee Klingman
Color/stereo
Cast:
Andy Kaufman: Jim Carrey
George Shapiro: Danny DeVito
Bob Zmuda: Paul Giamatti
Lynne Margulies: Courtney Love
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 12/13/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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