Biography

Jerry Herbert Tokofsky (April 14, 1934 – October 5, 2025) was an American agent, film producer, and studio executive. Tokofsky began his connection with the film business as an agent, and by the 1960s had become a studio executive at Columbia Pictures. In 1966, he was vice-president. He then produced films for the studio. By 1968, Tokofsky had become head of Columbia’s creative affairs department, which had the tasks of evaluating scripts and overseeing actors, directors, and producers. He took on Peter Guber as his assistant and later spoke warmly of Guber’s usefulness to him. By the early 1970s, Tokofsky was producing films for United Artists and others. Born to Win (1971) was the first film by a production company founded by Tokofsky and George Segal. In 1986, at the suggestion of Irvin Kershner, Tokofsky and Stanley Zupnik paid David Mamet $1 million for the film rights to his award-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, but it took them several years to raise the money to make the film, as no major studio would touch it. On February 21, 1956, Tokofsky married Myrna Weinstein, and before divorcing, they had two sons; in 1970, he married secondly Fiammetta Bettuzzi, and they had a daughter, but this also ended in divorce; thirdly, on October 4, 1981, he married Karen Oliver. Tokofsky died from natural causes in New York City on October 5, 2025, at the age of 91.

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