Mike Medavoy

Morris Mike Medavoy was born in Shanghai on January 21, 1941, to Michael Medavoy, a garage mechanic, and Dora Medavoy, a dress shop owner whose clientele included Chinese actresses. His parents were Russian-speaking Ukrainian Jews; his mother was born in Harbin to immigrants from Odesa, and his father was originally from Ukraine. He has a younger sister named Ronnie.

The Medavoy family lived in Chile from 1947 to 1957, where Medavoy attended the Liceo Valentín Letelier de Santiago. They later moved to Los Angeles and lived with a relative. Medavoy became a U.S. citizen in 1963, the same year he graduated from UCLA. He joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1963 and served at Fort Ord in California until 1969.

Early work

In 1964, Mike Medavoy began his career in the mailroom at Universal Studios. The following year, he became an agent at the General Artists Corporation and later joined Creative Management Associates (CMA). In 1967, he was appointed vice president of CMA’s motion picture department, where he worked with emerging filmmakers including Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. In 1970, he moved to the International Famous Agency.

In 1974, Medavoy joined United Artists as senior vice president of production. During his tenure, the studio released several critically acclaimed films, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Rocky (1976), and Annie Hall (1977), all of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in their respective years.

Orion Pictures

In 1978, Medavoy co-founded Orion Pictures, a joint venture with Warner Bros. and former United Artists executives Arthur Krim, Robert Benjamin, Eric Pleskow, and William Bernstein. While at Orion, the company released several critically and commercially successful films, including Amadeus (1984), The Terminator (1984), Platoon (1986), RoboCop (1987), Dances With Wolves (1990), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Medavoy was previously married to Marcia Rogers, the daughter of publicist Henry C. Rogers and former wife of actor Mark Goddard. The dates of their marriage and divorce are not publicly documented. They have no children together. Brian Medavoy (born 1965), who is also a film producer is from a previous relationship Mike Medavoy had.

In 1986, Medavoy married political consultant Patricia Duff; the couple divorced in 1993. He married Russian-American philanthropist and former model Irena Gerasimenko in 1995. They have a son named Nick.

Medavoy was a close friend of actor Marlon Brando and serves as a co-executor of Brando’s estate. In addition to his native Russian, he speaks Spanish, which he learned while living in Chile, and English, which he acquired after immigrating to the United States.

Medavoy has supported the Democratic Party in various capacities. He served as co-finance chair for Gary Hart's 1988 presidential campaign and was involved in Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. He also supported Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, during which his wife, Irena Medavoy, served as co-finance chair.