James Jacks

James Jim Jacks December 29 1947 January 20 2014 was an American film producer of several blockbuster films and was also known for cultivating visionary independent film auteurs having produced the first Hollywood films of Richard Linklater Joel and Ethan Coen the Coen Brothers and Kevin Smith Born December 29 1947 Jacks grew up in a military family He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BS in Industrial Engineering and from Cornell University with an MBA He was working as a Wall Street financial analyst when he decided to be a screenwriter Unsuccessful he became head of production at Circle Films in the early to mid1980s and then senior vicepresident of production at Universal Studios from the late1980s into the early1990s In 1992 he became an independent producer with Alphaville Films which he cofounded with Sean Daniel He left Alphaville Films in 2004 The shrimp parmigiana at the Los Angeles restaurant Dan Tanas is named for him Jacks died on January 20 2014 of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home at the age of 66 Description above from the Wikipedia article James Jacks licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia