Jack Valenti

Valenti (far left) was present at Lyndon B. Johnson's swearing in aboard Air Force One.

Valenti served as liaison with the news media during President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson's November 22, 1963, visit to Dallas, Texas, and Valenti was in the presidential motorcade. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, Valenti was present at Lyndon Johnson's swearing-in aboard Air Force One, and flew with him to Washington. He then became the first "special assistant" to Johnson's White House and lived there for the first two months of Johnson's presidency.[3] In 1964, Johnson gave Valenti the responsibility to handle relations with the Republican Congressional leadership, particularly Gerald Ford and Charles Halleck from the House of Representatives, and the Senate's Everett Dirksen.[4]

Valenti later called Johnson "the most single dominating human being that I've ever been in contact with" and "the single most intelligent man I've ever known".[5] In a speech before the American Advertising Federation in 1965, Valenti said: "I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president."[2][6]

Valenti later attacked film director Oliver Stone for the 1991 movie JFK. He called the movie a "monstrous charade" and said, "I owe where I am today to Lyndon Johnson. I could not live with myself if I stood by mutely and let some filmmaker soil his memory."[7]

In 1966, Valenti, at the insistence of Universal Studios chief Lew Wasserman and with Johnson's consent, resigned his White House commission and became president of the Motion Picture Association of America. With Valenti's arrival in Hollywood, the pair were lifelong allies, and together orchestrated and controlled how Hollywood would conduct business for the next several decades.

William Patry, a copyright attorney for the Clinton administration, who observed Valenti firsthand says:

His personal passion and extreme comfort around politicians gave him credibility that others ... would lack. Mr Valenti was a consummate salesman, who like all great salesmen ... worked himself up into believing the truth of his clients' message. Those privileged to see Mr Valenti offstage – talking openly with his clients about what could or could not be achieved, and what artifice would or would not work – are aware that Mr Valenti's clients frequently disagreed with his advice and directed him to deliver a different message through a different artifice. [He] was a great actor working on the stage of Washington DC (and sometimes globally) on behalf of an industry that appreciated his craft, but that never let him forget that the message was theirs and not his.[8]

In 1968, Valenti developed the MPAA film rating system,[9] which initially comprised four distinct ratings: G, M, R and X. The M rating was soon replaced by GP, and changed to PG in 1972. The X rating immediately proved troublesome, since it was not trademarked and therefore used freely by the pornographic film industry, with which it became most associated. Mainstream films such as Midnight Cowboy and A Clockwork Orange were assumed by the public to be pornographic because they carried the X rating. In 1990, the trademarked "adults only" NC-17 rating was introduced as a replacement for the non-trademarked X-rating. The PG-13 rating had been added in 1984 to provide a greater range of distinction for audiences and was first proposed by Steven Spielberg.[10]

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Valenti became notorious for his flamboyant attacks on the Sony Betamax Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), which the MPAA feared would devastate the movie industry. He famously told a congressional panel in 1982, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."[11] Despite Valenti's prediction, the home video market ultimately came to be the mainstay of movie studio revenues throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Jack Valenti in 1991

In 1998, Valenti lobbied for the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, arguing that copyright infringement via the Internet would severely damage the record and movie industries.[12]

In 2003, Valenti found himself at the center of the so-called screener debate, as the MPAA barred studios and many independent producers from sending screener copies of their films to critics and voters in various awards shows. Under mounting industry pressure and a court injunction Antidote Int'l Films Inc. et al. v MPAA (November 2003), Valenti backed down in 2004, narrowly avoiding a massive and embarrassing antitrust lawsuit against the MPAA.

The Coalition of Independent Filmmakers' Jeff Levy-Hinte, IFP/Los Angeles executive director Dawn Hudson and IFP/New York executive director Michelle Byrd said in a joint statement, "By obtaining a court order to force the MPAA to lift the screener ban last December, the Coalition enabled individual distributors to determine when and in what manner to distribute promotional screeners." It was viewed as Valenti's greatest professional loss.

Valenti received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal for his service with the Army Air Force during the Second World War. In 1969, Jack Valenti received the Bronze Medallion, New York City's highest civilian honor. In 1985, Jack Valenti received the French Légion d'Honneur.[13][14]

In 2002, the University of Houston bestowed Valenti an honorary doctorate.

In December 2003, Valenti received the "Legend in Leadership Award" from the Chief Executive Leadership Institute of the Yale School of Management.

In June 2005, the Washington DC headquarters of the Motion Picture Association of America, was renamed the Jack Valenti Building. It is located at 888 16th St. NW, Washington DC, very close to the White House. Jack Valenti maintained an office on the 8th floor, outside the MPAA's space, until his death.

In April 2008, the University of Houston renamed its School of Communication to the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication in his honor. Valenti was one of the school's notable alumni.[15]

Valenti died from complications of a stroke at his home in Washington on April 26, 2007, at the age of 85.[19] He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery under a veteran's gravestone, which lists both his war decorations and his years as president of the MPAA.[20] His memoirs This Time, This Place: My life in war, the White House and Hollywood were published on May 15, 2007, a few weeks after his death.[2]

Following his death, the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) launched the NIAF Jack Valenti Institute, which provides support to Italian-American film students, in his memory. Director Martin Scorsese launched the institute at the Foundation's 32nd Anniversary Gala, after receiving an award from Mary Margaret Valenti.