Harvey Weinstein is an American convicted sex offender and former film producer. He and his brother Bob Weinstein co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced successful independent films. Weinstein won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love and seven Tony Awards for plays and musicals. In October 2017, following sexual abuse allegations dating back to the late 1970s, Weinstein was dismissed from his company and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was found guilty of two of five felonies in February 2020, was sentenced to 23 years in prison, and is serving his sentence at Wende Correctional Facility.
About Harvey Weinstein in brief
Harvey Weinstein is an American convicted sex offender and former film producer. He and his brother Bob Weinstein co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced successful independent films. Weinstein won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love and seven Tony Awards for plays and musicals. In October 2017, following sexual abuse allegations dating back to the late 1970s, Weinstein was dismissed from his company and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Weinstein was arrested and charged with rape in New York in May 2018. He was found guilty of two of five felonies in February 2020, was sentenced to 23 years in prison, and is serving his sentence at Wende Correctional Facility. The allegations sparked the #MeToo social media campaign and many sex abuse allegations against powerful men around the world; this phenomenon is referred to as the ‘Weinstein effect’ Weinstein was born on March 19, 1952, in the Flushing section of Queens, New York, to diamond cutter Max Weinstein and his wife, Miriam. His family is Jewish, and his maternal grandparents had immigrated from Poland. He grew up with his younger brother, Bob, in a housing co-op named Electchester in NYC. He graduated from John Bowne High School and attended the State University of New York at Buffalo. In the late 70s, using profits from their concert promotion business, the brothers founded the independent film distribution company Mirmax, named after their parents Miriam and Max.
The company’s first releases were primarily music-oriented concert films, such as Paul McCartney’s Rockshow. In 1989, their successful launch release of Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape propelled Miramx to become the most successful independent studio in America. The Weinsteins slowly built upon this success throughout the 1980s with arthouse films that achieved critical attention and modest commercial success. The brothers agreed to the deal that would cement their clout and ensure that they would remain the head of their company. In 1993, the success of The Crying Game started a string of critical successes that included Good Will Hunting, The English Patient, and Shakespeare In Love. The following year, the company released its first blockbuster, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, and distributed the popular film Clerks. The Weinstein Company, a mini-major film studio, was co-chairman, alongside Bob, from 2005 to 2017. It is now owned by the Walt Disney Company, which owns Lucasfilm, Hasbro, BSkyB, and 20th Century Fox. It was founded by Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, and their mother Miriam Weinstein in the 1970s and 1980s, and it is based in Queens, NY. It has offices in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, and New York City. In 2011, the Weinstein Company was acquired by The Walt Disney Co., which is now based in Burbank, California, and London, NY, and has offices across the globe.
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