E4 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR
such dignity. He proved that
nice guys can finish first.”
Born in New York in 1945,
Biondi grew up in Livingston,
N.J. He became a star base-
ball player, as a pitcher and
outfielder, before enrolling at
Princeton University, where
he earned a bachelor’s degree
in psychology in 1966. Later,
armed with an MBA from
Harvard, he began his career
as a financial analyst on Wall
Street.
Biondi then entered the
nascent cable television in-
dustry, but the market ham-
mered cable stocks in the
early 1970s, so he found refuge
in a nonprofit called the Chil-
dren’s Television Workshop.
It produced such classics as
“Sesame Street” and “The
Electric Company.”
A colleague at CTW, Carol
Oughton, whom Biondi was
dating and later wed, had in-
troduced him to a William
Morris attorney, Michael
Fuchs, who was the architect
of HBO. Fuchs offered him
the job of head of movie ac-
quisitions for HBO.
“I thought this was really
a silly job, to be honest with
you, because you paid 30
cents-40 cents a movie,”
Biondi said in a 2000 inter-
view with the industry group
now known as the Cable
Center. “It sounded like an
accountant’s job. So I turned
him down. They were mysti-
fied. How could I do that?”
But Fuchs persisted,
eventually recruiting him to
become head of co-produc-
tions.
“He was working at the
Children’s Television Work-
shop, as the treasurer or
something, and I felt that
wasn’t an important enough
job for him,” Fuchs said. “At
that time, we were doing a lot
of acquisitions so he was buy-
ing music and concerts from
around the world. I once
asked him how he liked it,
and Frank said: ‘I don’t know.
There are no answers in this
business.’ ”
Biondi is credited with
helping establish the suc-
cessful model of a premium
subscription channel with
boxing and blockbuster Hol-
lywood movies. He became
president and chief executive
of HBO in 1983 but left the
company the following year.
His next assignment was
helping Coca-Cola Co. navi-
gate Hollywood. In 1982, the
beverage giant had pur-
chased the legendary Colum-
bia Pictures, and Fay Vin-
cent, who later became Major
League Baseball commis-
sioner, headed the studio.
Biondi, in the Cable Center
interview, recalled Vincent
telling him: “Coke wants to
make [its] entertainment
business a lot bigger. Would
you come over and help us?”
The group acquired Nor-
man Lear’s Embassy Com-
munications and Merv
Griffin’s company, which pro-
duced “Wheel of Fortune”
and “Jeopardy.” Biondi also
helped launch Castle Rock
Entertainment, a production
company that immediately
made a splash with “When
Harry Met Sally.” That firm
was founded by Alan Horn,
Martin Shafer, Rob Reiner,Andrew Scheinman and
Glenn Padnick. Like Biondi,
Shafer and Scheinman were
skilled tennis players, and
they bonded over the sport,
observed Horn, who now
leads Walt Disney Studios.
“Frank was a terrific ten-
nis player and I think half of
me thought the only reason
that he got the funding for us
[at Castle Rock] was be-
cause he wanted to play ten-
nis with Martin and Andy,”
Horn said in an interview. “I
wasn’t good enough to play
with them on the court, but I
would bring water... He was
whip-smart but also a
gentleman.”
Biondi is best known for
his tenure as president and
chief executive of Viacom,
the parent company of MTV,
Paramount Pictures andNickelodeon. He joined the
media giant, controlled by
chairman Sumner Redstone,
in 1987 soon after Redstone
acquired it. During Biondi’s
run, Viacom transformed it-
self from a cable and theater
company into an entertain-
ment colossus.
One of Biondi’s first
moves was to install Tom
Freston as head of MTV Net-
works.
In 1989, HBO announced
in it was launching a comedy
channel, so Freston called
Biondi. “I told him that HBO
is doing a comedy channel
and we should start one too,”
Freston said. “So, during a
five-minute call we agreed to
launch a cable channel with
no business plan.”
It would become Comedy
Central.In a 2011 interview with
The Times, Biondi recalled
that Viacom was poised in the
early 1990s to buy NBC,
MSNBC and CNBC from
General Electric for $850 mil-
lion. “We were literally driving
back from Connecticut and
Sumner called and said ... he
wanted to buy Paramount in-
stead,” Biondi said.
Redstone emerged from a
bruising bidding war with his
prize. But the Paramount ac-
quisition, and the purchase of
the Blockbuster video chain,
left Viacom deeply in debt.
Biondi, known for his facil-
ity with numbers, helped
Redstone quickly integrate
Viacom’s divisions. He was
widely described as the even-
keeled foil to the sharp-el-
bowed Redstone. Viacom’s
successes included the Os-
car-winning film “Brave-
heart,” the irreverent MTV
cartoon “Beavis and Butt-
Head” and the TV sitcom
“Frasier.”
“If a film fell short of ex-
pectations, then Frank would
say: ‘Let’s move on, I know
you did your best,’” Lansing
said.
In 1995, the New Yorker
magazine published a flatter-
ing profile, calling Biondi:
“Redstone’s Secret Weapon.”
Freston said the article infu-
riated Redstone and months
later the mogul surprised in-
vestors in 1996 by firing his
lieutenant, saying he wanted
the company to move faster.
“Sumner hated to see some-
one else get credit, even
someone who deserved the
credit,” Freston said.
Biondi was immediatelyhired by Seagram Co. scion
Edgar Bronfman Jr. to lead
the liquor company’s enter-
tainment enterprise, Uni-
versal Studios, formerly
known as MCA. However, the
entertainment division was
struggling with film flops and
executive turmoil.
Biondi was pushed out in
1998 amid a broader shakeup.
Biondi, at the time, said it
was clear Bronfman wanted
“to run the business himself.”
He exited with a settlement
reportedly worth more than
$25 million.
Since 1999, Biondi has
served as senior managing
director of Waterview Advis-
ors and was on the boards of
several companies, including
Madison Square Garden,
AMC Networks and STX En-
tertainment. He also helped
finance the 2001 launch of the
Tennis Channel.
Robert Simonds, the
head of STX Entertainment,
is married to Biondi’s daugh-
ter, Anne.
“Anne and I are devas-
tated to lose Frank so young,”
Simonds said in a statement.
“He was not only an icon and
mentor to me, as he was to so
many in our industry, he was
a noble, kind and beloved fa-
ther to us and an extraordi-
nary grandfather.”
Biondi is survived by Car-
ol Oughton Biondi, his wife of
45 years, as well as daughters
Anne Biondi Simonds and
Jane Biondi Munna; and six
grandchildren.
“He achieved great suc-
cess but he never lost sight of
the value of family and
friends,” Lansing said.He helped transform Viacom into a colossus
[Biondi,from E1]
BIONDIworked to build up HBO and Viacom, and
helped launch Comedy Central and Tennis Channel.Beth A. KeiserAssociated Presswould never do became the
thing we were dying to do.”
They aren’t kidding
around anymore, reuniting
for “Mad About You,” which
has jumped from NBC to
Charter Communications’
premium content initiative,
Spectrum Originals. The re-
vival premiered Wednesday,
with Reiser and Hunt back as
the happily married Paul and
Jamie Buchman.
The new “Mad About
You” returns Hunt to TV’s
limelight, two decades re-
moved from a whirlwind pe-
riod in which she won four
consecutive lead actress Em-
mys for “Mad About You,”
scored a lead actress Oscar
for “As Good as It Gets” and
starred in the blockbuster
film “Twister.” (She also
made headlines recently
under less auspicious cir-
cumstances: The day after an
October press junket for
“Mad About You,” Hunt was
involved in an accident when
the car she was riding in was
struck by another vehicle.
She was not seriously in-
jured.)
In addition to being an
executive producer along
with Reiser, Hunt directed
the first episode of the re-
vival, a task she took on for
several installments of the
original — including the last
episode, “The Final Fron-
tier,” which Reiser called “a
beautiful short movie, very
ambitious.”
Although she has had a
relatively low profile since the
curtain fell on “Mad About
You,” Hunt has worked
steadily in front of and behind
the camera.
She wrote, directed and
starred in two independent
films — “Then She Found
Me” and “Ride” — that she
called deeply personal. She’s
also helmed episodes for sev-
eral TV shows, including
“This Is Us,” “American
Housewife,” “House of Lies”
and multiple Ryan Murphy-
produced projects, including
the FX miniseries “Feud:
Bette and Joan,” about Bette
Davis and Joan Crawford,
and “The Politician” on Net-
flix.
The return of the series
that made her a household
name thus finds Hunt at an
unlikely crossroads. Though
she has already made her
mark in Hollywood, it feels as
if she still has something to
prove.
“It was a lot all at once,”
she said. “Certainly, it would
have been nice to scatter that
over a longer period of time,
but I got super lucky and I
worked really hard — it was
opportunity and luck crash-
ing together. I made this big
action movie and I was on
this hit TV show and I begged
them to let me audition for
‘As Good as It Gets.’ I just
want it. I want good parts, I
want to tell good stories. The
big motivator is not to let ego
or fear — fear of being not
wanted — get in the way.”
Asked to speculate about
Hollywood’s perception of
her, she said, “I hate to think.
I’m afraid it’s smaller than
how I feel. Every narrative I
hear is not the way I feel.
‘Well, you had this big mo-
ment and then you disap-
peared.’ Well, I disappeared
and wrote two movies and
acted in a zillion of them that
didn’t happen to be $100-mil-
lion-making movies and
made a person [daughter
Makena Lei, born in 2004]
along the way. So when I hear
that narrative, I feel re-
duced.”
She pointed to her Oscar-
nominated role as a profes-
sional sex surrogate in 2012’s
“The Sessions.” “That was
a beautiful movie.” She add-
ed, “So when I hear, ‘Oh,
you’re directing now,’ it allfeels that it’s reducing who
I am. My real hope is that
wonderful writers and direc-
tors will say, ‘She can do so
much more than we’ve seen.
I’m going to put her in this
part that no one would ever
think of.’ This is why being
well-known is a curse. You try
so hard to be well-known so
you get jobs, and then it be-
comes ‘You know me, but you
don’t know me.’ ”
For now, Hunt is celebrat-
ing getting back to “Mad
About You.”
Although 20 years have
passed and being on a
streaming service allows for a
bit more freedom, Hunt and
Reiser say the series will
maintain its established fla-
vor. In moving forward,
though, the show is going
backward. The series finalefeatured Janeane Garofalo
as Mabel, the couple’s now-
grown daughter, discussing a
documentary she had made
about her parents. In the new
version, Mabel (Abby Quinn)
is just entering college, cre-
ating new anxieties for the
Buchmans.
“We’re quietly doing it our
own way, which is what we’ve
always done,” she said. “The
weird news is that our chem-
istry has not changed. We al-
most always have the same
opinion about what direction
the show should take. We just
haven’t grown apart. We’ve
both had real hard things
happen and real wonderful
things happen. That’s what a
friendship is. So to meet at
this thing that is a four-cam-
era situation comedy about
loving somebody, that’s amember of the friendship.”
Going back to directing
on the series also means that
Hunt will once again be able
to inject her unique sensibil-
ity into the series: “My favor-
ite kind of work, what I’ve
been the most successful
with on both sides of the
camera, is to walk that line
between something that is
moving or disturbing or scary
and something funny. That’s
the dream.”
Reiser is thrilled that
Hunt has gone back to the
“Mad About You” director’s
chair. “To be directed by
Helen is very comforting,” he
said, adding that his partner
injects a sense of wackiness
into the proceedings. “For all
her serious dramatic work
and the Oscar, she unabash-
edly bows down at the altar of
Lucy [Ball], Carl Reiner,
Dick Van Dyke. She’s the one
pitching the silliest, most
outlandish pieces. As long as
we can figure out a way to
show that real people would
do it, we go for it.”
As for her career since
“Mad About You,” Reiser
said, “Helen’s done a lot of di-
recting that doesn’t get a lot
of fanfare, comedies and dra-
mas that are below the radar.But she has kept those chops
going. She’s done these really
beautiful movies that are so
telling of her scope and sen-
sibility. To write, direct and
act, any one of those things is
huge. But to do all of those
things at once — to direct
these emotional scenes while
also acting in them — there
are very few people who can
do that.”
Hunt’s 2007 comedy-
drama “Then She Found Me”
featured Matthew Broderick,
Bette Midler and Colin Firth
in a story about a school-
teacher (Hunt) caught in a
whirlwind of personal up-
heavals. In 2014’s “Ride,”
Hunt plays a New York book
editor who tries to repair her
relationship with her son by
following him to Los Angeles
and learning to surf. The
films won some critical acco-
lades but failed to find audi-
ences.
“That’s the beauty of the
independent film,” Hunt
said. “It’s torture to make
them, and then no one sees
them.” She laughed before
adding, “If there was a funer-
al of me tomorrow, I would
say those two movies could
be seen as a biography of me.
Not the actual events, but the
themes they’re looking at.”
But don’t prepare a
eulogy just yet. Hunt is rel-
ishing being back on the
small screen with her favorite
partner.
“I feel protective of him,
and I’m sure he feels protec-
tive of me,” Hunt said. “It’s a
pretty tremendous thing.
The trick, of course, is to
appreciate it while you’re
doing it.”Trae PattonSony Pictures Television / Spectrum OriginalsHUNTand Reiser thought they were saying goodbye forever to their characters
and “Mad About You” in 1999. Fast-forward 20 years, and they’re back on TV.NBC‘Mad
About You’
Where:Spectrum Originals
When: Anytime
Rating: TV-PG (may be
unsuitable for young
children)[Hunt,from E1]
Hunt still has something to prove
BUCHMANS 2.0:“We’re quietly doing it our own way, which is what we’ve always done,” says Helen Hunt, with TV hubby Paul Reiser.