John Heyman
Film and TV Producer, USA
John Heyman was born in Leipzig, Germany, and while reading law at Oxford, wrote and sold a number of television concepts to the new Independent Television Network. Three of these concepts became top-ten rated television shows and ran for 13 years.
In 1959, he formed what was to become the largest independent artists’ agency outside the U.S., representing such stars as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, Trevor Howard, Wolf Mankowitz, Shirley Bassey, Andre Previn and Burt Bacharach.
Since 1963 he has produced, co-produced, co-financed or distributed numerous motion pictures and plays including the longest-running Hamlet in Broadway history,
starring Richard Burton and directed by John Gielgud. In both 1971 and 1973, Heyman-produced films won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
For over 30 years, he has rendered his services to several of the major studios, providing more than $3 billion to co-finance films including Awakenings (Columbia), Black Rain (Paramount), Chinatown (Paramount), Edward Scissorhands (Fox), Grease (Paramount), Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan (Warner), Heaven Can Wait (Paramount), Home Alone (Fox), Looking For Mr. Goodbar (Paramount), The Man Who Would Be King (Allied Artists), Marathon Man (Paramount), The Odessa File (Columbia), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Fox), Saturday Night Fever (Paramount), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount) and Trail of the Pink Panther (MGM).
Over the years his World Group of Company’s executives and directors have been associated as producers, packagers, co-financiers, investors or distributors of films that have grossed in excess of $7 billion. These films have received 188 Academy Award nominations, 26 Oscars, 3 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and numerous other awards. World Productions in London became the largest independent producer of television drama in the U.K. and the only company to have had programs airing on all five U.K. terrestrial channels in one year.
He also created The Genesis Project, a scholarly-based non-denominational effort to translate the Bible onto film. He continues actively to produce and co-finance films and television productions.
