Jerry Weintraub

Once best known as a concert promoter and a music manager, Mr. Weintraub became a force in the film business with Mr. Altman’s “Nashville,” Barry Levinson’s “Diner” and Carl Reiner’s “Oh, God!” He joined in producing those movies in the 1970s and ’80s, before a crippling business failure temporarily halted his Hollywood career. A longtime intimate of former President George H. W. Bush — initially a friend of Mr. Weintraub’s second wife, the torch singer Jane Morgan — Mr. Weintraub made himself into a myth by combining his three hallmarks: political access, Hollywood success and relentless charm. Jerome Charles Weintraub was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 26, 1937, and grew up in the Bronx. In a story he told over the years, he learned how to spin facts — or nonfacts — from his jeweler father, Samuel Weintraub, who promoted his business with tall tales. As Mr. Weintraub told the story, one highly promoted sapphire was actually “a piece of junk,” but his father named it the Star of Ardavan and took it on tour. Mr. Weintraub skipped college to join the Air Force and, after serving, got a job as a page at NBC. Soon he was working as an assistant to Lew Wasserman at MCA, the talent agency. But climbing rungs was not his style. By 1964 he had struck out with a couple of friends to start a management company. How exactly he got involved with Elvis Presley is a story that changed at his own telling and retelling over the years. This much is true: Mr. Weintraub somehow gained the confidence of Colonel Tom Parker, who managed Presley, and helped engineer a successful concert tour — so successful that, by 1968, Mr. Weintraub was similarly working with Sinatra. By the early 1970s, Mr. Weintraub’s roster of music clients had grown to include Led Zeppelin, the Moody Blues and John Denver. Mr. Denver, with George Burns, starred in “Oh, God!,” enhancing Mr. Weintraub’s film career, though they eventually parted acrimoniously. Mr. Weintraub struggled through personal friction with Ms. Morgan, from whom he separated decades ago but never divorced, and business turmoil, which led to the bankruptcy of his Weintraub Entertainment Group in 1990. Among his philanthropies, throughout his business life, Mr. Weintraub was known for organizing and appearing on annual telethons for Chabad, the religious and charitable group. His survivors include Ms. Morgan and four children: Michael, Julie, Jamie and Jody.