OFE News Release
Longtime Motion Picture Industry Leader, Jack Valenti, to Speak at Academic Awards Banquet
 Jack Valenti, former president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, will be the featured speaker at the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence 19 th annual Academic Awards Banquet, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. May 21 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City. |
Jack Valenti, who led the American motion picture industry through nearly four decades of growth and technological transformation, will be the keynote speaker for the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence’s 19 th annual Academic Awards Banquet, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 21, at Oklahoma City’s Cox Convention Center.
The gala event honors 100 of Oklahoma’s top public high school seniors as Academic All-Staters and presents Oklahoma Medal for Excellence Awards to six outstanding educators and education programs.
From 1966 to 2004, Valenti served as president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America and its international counterpart, the Motion Picture Association. He continues to serve the organization as a senior consultant. Valenti has summed up the Motion Picture Association’s mandate as, “To make sure American movie and television programs can move freely and competitively around the world.” In recent years, the MPAA has also focused its efforts on “protecting films from theft in the digital environment,” he said.
When Valenti joined the MPAA, Hollywood’s major studios’ worldwide revenues were $1.26 billion, with 33 percent in international markets. By 2003, the MPAA member companies’ global revenues had grown to $41.2 billion, 40 percent of which were international revenues.
In addition to being a motion picture industry leader, Valenti has been a wartime bomber pilot, an advertising agency founder, a political consultant and a White House special assistant. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Valenti became the youngest, at age 15, to graduate from high school in his city. As a young Army Air Corps pilot in World War II, Valenti flew 51 combat missions and earned numerous honors, including the Distinguished Flying Cross.
A graduate of the University of Houston and Harvard University, Valenti co-founded the Houston advertising and political consulting agency of Weekley & Valenti. In 1955, he met the man who would have the largest impact on his life, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson.
Valenti’s agency was in charge of the press during the visit of President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Johnson to Dallas on November 22, 1963. Valenti was in the sixth car of the motorcade when President Kennedy was fatally shot. Within an hour of the assassination, Valenti flew back to Washington on Air Force One with the newly sworn in President Johnson to become Johnson’s first special assistant to the president. He held the White House post until June 1, 1966, when he resigned to join the Motion Picture Association of America.
Valenti currently serves as president of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is associated with the Global Fund, created by G-8 countries. He is a life member of the Directors Guild of America and member of the board of trustees of the American Film Institute. In addition, Valenti is the author of four books, including non-fiction works, “The Bitter Taste of Glory,” “A Very Human President” and “Speak Up With Confidence.” He has also written a political novel, “Protect and Defend.”
Among his numerous honors, Valenti has been decorated by France, Germany, Italy and Argentina with their highest awards conferred upon non-citizens. Valenti has been awarded his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, and is featured among the handprints and footprints cast in cement at the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
CONTACT:
Brenda Wheelock,
OFE Communications Director
(405) 236-0006; e-mail bwheelock@ofe.org