Frank Price(I)

One of the few Hollywood executives to come out of a writing background, Price interrupted his early TV career (where he was story editor and writer for CBS-TV from 1951-53) with a stint as story editor at Columbia Pictures (1953-57), which he would later head at two separate times. As the head of Universal TV in the 1970's, he developed or supervised The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), The Bionic Woman (1976), The Incredible Hulk (1977), Battlestar Galactica (1978), The Rockford Files (1974) and many others. He is credited with helping to create new TV formats: movies made-for-TV and the mini-series, as well as the 90-minute series. In 1978, Price left the presidency of Universal TV to become President, and later Chairman and CEO, of Columbia Pictures where he was involved with such story-driven, award-winning films as Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Tootsie (1982) and Gandhi (1982) and top-grossers as Ghostbusters (1984) and The Karate Kid (1984). In 1983, after conflict with parent company Coca-Cola over his autonomy, Price swung back to Universal as chairman of the motion picture group and president of Universal Pictures, where he developed Back to the Future (1985), Fletch (1985), Out of Africa (1985) and The Breakfast Club (1985). After Sony's purchase of Columbia, the newly-installed executives, Jon Peters and Peter Guber, appointed Price to head Columbia Pictures. Eighteen months later, in October 1991, when his colleague at Warner Bros., Mark Canton, was freed from his contract, he was brought in to replace Price, who continued his association with Sony Pictures Entertainment with a non-exclusive production deal.