Jerry Weintraub  Jerome Charles Weintraub (September 26, 1937 – July 6, 2015) was an American film producer, talent manager and actor whose television films won him three Emmys. He began his career as a talent agent, having managed relatively unknown singer John Denver in 1970, developing Denver's success through concerts, television specials and film roles, including "Oh, God!" (1977). Weintraub has been credited with making "show business history" by being the first to organize and manage large arena concert tours for singers. Among the other performers whose tours he managed were Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Four Seasons, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Three Dog Night and The Carpenters. Following his years as a concert promoter, he began producing films. Among them were director Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975), Barry Levinson's "Diner" (1982), the original version of "The Karate Kid" (1984) and its 2010 remake, as well as the remake "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), and its two sequels. Later, Weintraub was executive producer of HBO's series "The Brink" and HBO's "Behind the Candelabra" in 2013, which won an Emmy. In 2014, he won another Emmy as co-producer of "Years of Living Dangerously", a television documentary about global warming. In 2011, HBO broadcast a television documentary about Weintraub's life, called "His Way." Weintraub was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, and raised in the Bronx, the son of Rose (née Bass) and Samuel Weintraub. His father was a gem dealer. While growing up, he worked as a theater usher and as a waiter in the Catskills. After several years at MCA, where he first started work as a mailroom clerk, he left and formed his own personal management company. While at MCA, he was assistant to Lew Wasserman, whom he thought of as a father figure. In the 1960s, he co-founded the vocal group The Doodletown Pipers. Among the acts that Weintraub managed at this time were Paul Anka, Shelley Berman, Pat Boone, Joey Bishop, The Four Seasons, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffett and singer Jane Morgan, whom he would later marry. Weintraub was the manager of singer and actor John Denver whom he signed in 1970. Weintraub first saw Denver performing at a small club in Greenwich Village and liked his easy, "mountaineer's" manner.