Frank Yablans, the president of Paramount Pictures during one of its greatest eras, died on Thursday at age 79.
His son, ICM Partners agent Eddy Yablans confirmed the news to Variety. Yablans died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles.
Yablans was born in Brooklyn and well known for a sense of humor and his outbursts. He began his Hollywood career at Warner Bros. and also worked at Disney before he was named executive VP of sales at Paramount in the late 1960s. One of his first successes there was marketing Love Story.
When that film became a huge hit, he was promoted to president in 1971 and remained there through 1975. During that time, the studio won Best Picture Oscars for Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. Other beloved classics from that era include Paper Moon, Serpico and Chinatown.
Yablans was also a writer. As Deadline notes, he also wrote North Dallas Forty (1979) and Mommie Dearest (1981). In 2003, he founded Promenade Pictures, a studio that made family animated films of Noah and The Ten Commandments.
Yablans is survived by three children, four grandchildren and companion Nadia Pandolfo.