Jack Joseph Valenti (September 5, 1921 – April 26, 2007) was an American political advisor and lobbyist who served as a Special Assistant to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was also the longtime president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world.
Early life and education
Valenti was born on September 5, 1921, in Houston, the son of Italian immigrants. He attended Sam Houston High School. During World War II, he was a first lieutenant in the United States Army Air Force. Valenti flew 51 combat missions as the pilot-commander of a B-25 medium bomber and received four decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal.
Valenti graduated from the University of Houston in 1946 with a BA. During his time there, he worked on the staff of the university newspaper, The Daily Cougar, and was president of the university's student government. Valenti would later serve on the university's board of regents.
Career
After earning an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1948, Valenti worked for Humble Oil in its advertising department, where he helped the company's Texas gas stations jump from fifth to first in sales through a "cleanest restrooms" campaign.
In 1952, he and a partner named Weldon Weekley founded Weekley & Valenti, an advertising agency, with oil company Conoco as its first client. In 1956, Valenti met then Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. Weekley & Valenti branched out into political consulting and added Representative Albert Thomas, a Johnson ally, as a client. In 1960, Valenti's firm assisted in the Kennedy-Johnson presidential campaign.
Politics
Valenti served as liaison with the news media during President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson's November 22, 1963, visit to Dallas, Texas, and Valenti was in the presidential motorcade. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, Valenti was present at Lyndon Johnson's swearing-in aboard Air Force One, and flew with him to Washington. He then became the first "special assistant" to Johnson's White House and lived there for the first two months of Johnson's presidency. In 1964, Johnson gave Valenti the responsibility to handle relations with the Republican Congressional leadership, particularly Gerald Ford and Charles Halleck from the House of Representatives, and the Senate's Everett Dirksen.
Valenti later called Johnson "the most single dominating human being that I've ever been in contact with" and "the single most intelligent man I've ever known". In a speech before the American Advertising Federation in 1965, Valenti said: "I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president."
Valenti later attacked film director Oliver Stone for the 1991 movie JFK. He called the movie a "monstrous charade" and said, "I owe where I am today to Lyndon Johnson. I could not live with myself if I stood by mutely and let some filmmaker soil his memory."
MPAA
In 1966, Valenti, at the insistence of Universal Studios chief Lew Wasserman and with Johnson's consent, resigned his White House commission and became president of the Motion Picture Association of America. With Valenti's arrival in Hollywood, the pair were lifelong allies, and together orchestrated and controlled how Hollywood would conduct business for the next several decades.
William Patry, a copyright attorney for the Clinton administration, who observed Valenti firsthand says:
His personal passion and extreme comfort around politicians gave him credibility that others ... would lack. Mr Valenti was a consummate salesman, who like all great salesmen ... worked himself up into believing the truth of his clients' message. Those privileged to see Mr Valenti offstage – talking openly with his clients about what could or could not be achieved, and what artifice would or would not work – are aware that Mr Valenti's clients frequently disagreed with his advice and directed him to deliver a different message through a different artifice. [He] was a great actor working on the stage of Washington DC (and sometimes globally) on behalf of an industry that appreciated his craft, but that never let him forget that the message was theirs and not his.