Laura Ziskin

Laura Ellen Ziskin (March 3, 1950 – June 12, 2011) was an American film producer. She was an executive producer of Pretty Woman (1990) and a producer of Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012; posthumous credit).

She was the first woman to produce the Academy Awards telecast alone, producing the 74th Academy Awards (2002) and the 79th Academy Awards (2007).

Ziskin was born and raised in a Russian-Jewish family in the San Fernando Valley, California, the daughter of Jay Ziskin and Elaine Edelman. Her father was a psychologist and lawyer who died of prostate cancer, aged 77, on June 14, 1997.

After graduating from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1973, Ziskin began by writing material for game shows and then became the personal assistant of Jon Peters. Ziskin quickly became a development executive, moving into feature films with Jon Peters' production company, where she worked on the remake of A Star Is Born (1976), starring Barbra Streisand. She was the associate producer of The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978).

Ziskin formed Fogwood Films with partner Sally Field in 1984, and produced Murphy's Romance (1985). As an independent producer, Ziskin produced the thriller No Way Out (1987) for Orion Pictures. Ziskin and partner Ian Sander produced two films featuring Dennis Quaid, the 1988 remake of D.O.A., and Taylor Hackford's Everybody's All-American (also 1988).

Ziskin's largest success came with the release of the comedy Pretty Woman (1990), starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, on which Ziskin served as executive producer for Touchstone Pictures. Ziskin's next project, What About Bob? (1991), proved stressful. She and star Bill Murray had spirited disagreements during production, which involved Murray pushing her into a lake and breaking her sunglasses.

Neither that film nor The Doctor (also 1991) were anywhere near as strong at the box-office as Pretty Woman. A switch to Columbia resulted in Stephen Frears' Hero (1992), a loose remake of Meet John Doe (1941), for which Ziskin both produced and supplied the story. Ziskin directed her first short film Oh, What a Day! 1914, which was released in 1994, and produced the Nicole Kidman tour-de-force To Die For (1995), under the banner of Laura Ziskin Productions.

Ziskin was appointed president of Fox 2000 in 1994, a newly created division of 20th Century Fox.