Marvin Levy, the veteran marketing and publicity professional who has worked exclusively for Steven Spielberg since 1977, is retiring. Spielberg informed employees of the news at his company, Amblin Partners, in an email sent on Monday and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, calling it “the end of an era.”

Levy, who began his career in the 1950s, was employed at Columbia Pictures in 1977 when Spielberg made Close Encounters of the Third Kind for the studio. He and the filmmaker hit it off, and Levy soon left to become Spielberg’s full-time consigliere, of sorts, shaping the promotional and awards campaigns of dozens of Spielberg projects including E.T., The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich and Bridge of Spies.

Much beloved and respected across the industry, Levy served on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors for decades. In 2018, the board voted to present him with an honorary Oscar,...