Laura Ziskin - Biography

Last Editor: jodi.tabata				Laura Ziskin Biography -   Name : Laura Ziskin Date of birth : March 3, 1950 Nationality : American Profession : Film Producer Spouse : Alvin Sargent

Laura Ziskin Trivia -

Graduated from USC School of Cinema-Television (1973) Started as a personal assistant for Jon Peters. Sister-in-law of Herbert Sargent.

Laura Ziskin Detailed Biography -

Laura Ziskin was born on March 3, 1950. She grew up in the San Fernando Valley in California. Ziskin graduated from the University of Southern California USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1973. After being graduate, she started out writing for game shows and then became the personal assistant of Jon Peters. She quickly became a development executive, moving into feature films with Jon Peters' production company where she worked on the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born, starring Barbra Streisand. In 1978, she was the associate producer of The Eyes of Laura Mars. Laura Ziskin is an American film producer. In 1984, she formed Fogwood Films with partner Sally Field and produced "Murphy's Romance". As an independent producer, she cast the relatively unknown actors Kevin Costner and Sean Young with veteran Gene Hackman and produced the hit thriller "No Way Out" for Orion Pictures. Ziskin and her partner Ian Sander produced two films featuring Dennis Quaid, the remake of D.O.A. and Taylor Hackford's "Everybody's All-American" in 1988. In 1990, Ziskin's biggest success to date came with the hit comedy "Pretty Woman", starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, which Ziskin executive produced for Touchstone Pictures. This producer had worked on a number of successful films before being appointed as president of 20th Century-Fox's new division, Fox 2000, in 1994. After nearly five years on the job, Ziskin resigned from Fox 2000 in November 1999 and within a month had a production deal at Columbia Pictures. After being tapped to serve as the first solo female producer of an Academy Awards telecast in 2002, she returned to the big screen with the highly anticipated feature version of Spider-Man. The film was released on May 3, 2002 to good reviews from critics, went on to break box office records, and became the highest grossing film of 2002. The success of the film led to two sequels, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3.