Hollywood Legend Jack Valenti Dies At 85

White House Aide Advised LBJ, Then Headed MPAA

(CBS/AP) 

His duties grew to include congressional relations, diplomacy and speech editing, and he attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings. Valenti became known for his loyalty, likening Johnson to Lincoln for his civil rights efforts and declaring, to widespread ridicule, “I sleep each night a little better” knowing Johnson was in charge.

"There is a hole in our hearts with his passing," said Johnson's daughter, Luci Baines Johnson. "Jack was a giant of a man. He was our most sage counselor, eloquent spokesman, and ardent defender."


Yet Valenti resigned in 1966, over Johnson's objections, to accept the movie post. He became one of the highest-paid and best-known trade association executives, with a salary topping $1 million and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The ratings program that featured labels such as “G” for general audiences remained his greatest legacy, even as social mores evolved even further, creating new criticism over Hollywood's attempts to protect its audience.

The ratings system has met with recent disapproval from many film critics, cinema fans and moviemakers, especially directors of independent films who say the system is stacked in favor of big studio productions and against edgier, low-budget fare. Critics also say the system is overly prudish on sex while allowing excessive violence. Recently, tobacco opponents have even sought to add smoking to the list of activities deemed too sensitive for younger viewers.

Director Kirby Dick's 2006 documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” depicted the system as a secretive and inconsistent process that did not provide adequate methods to appeal decisions.

The system did undergo changes over the decades. A PG-13 rating (parental guidance strongly recommended) was added in the 1980s. The X rating for adult films was transformed into the NC-17 rating in the 1990s.

But the format Valenti laid out in the late 1960s generally has remained intact. Valenti was always quick to rebut critics, saying frequent MPAA surveys found that parents with young children felt the ratings system was a helpful guide.

Without the ratings system, Valenti said, Hollywood could be faced with a labyrinth of local censorship boards with conflicting standards.

Born in Houston, the grandson of Sicilian immigrants, Valenti swept floors and made popcorn in a local theater as a boy. He never lost his wonder at what he called the “miraculous, unfathomable alchemy” of moviemaking.

After earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for piloting bombing missions over Italy in World War II, he worked his way through night school at the University of Houston, then earned a master's in business administration from Harvard.

In 1952, he co-founded an advertising and political consulting agency. He was introduced to Senate Majority Leader Johnson three years later and was “mesmerized,” Valenti recalled. “I felt a primal force was in my presence.”

He met his future wife, Mary Margaret Wiley, through his budding friendship with the senator — she was Johnson's longtime secretary. They had three children.

Valenti wrote a handful of books, including one on Johnson, “A Very Human President,” and a novel, “Protect and Defend,” published in 1992 by Doubleday with the help of one of its senior editors, Jacqueline Kennedy.

By the time he retired, the movie business had been on a growth spurt for more than a decade, with admissions climbing to their highest level since the late 1950s.

“I'm the luckiest guy in the world, because I spent my entire public working career in two of life's classic fascinations, politics and Hollywood,” he said in 2004. “You can't beat that.”