Canadian-born film mogul Jake Eberts, who worked with Hollywood A list, dies

MONTREAL – Jake Eberts, a “proud Canadian” who produced some of Hollywood’s biggest films – including four best-picture Oscar winners – has died. He was 71.

Fiona Eberts, his wife, said he died in Montreal on Thursday after a lengthy illness. Eberts, who helped finance 37 Oscar-winning films, had been suffering from a form of melanoma for two years.

“I knew him for 44 years and if I’d written a description for a husband 44 years ago, it would have been him and that never changed,” Fiona Eberts said in an interview with The Canadian Press on Friday.

“He was a tremendously moral, highly principled person. In Hollywood, he swam in a shark pond and came out completely with all his members and fingers and toes and his integrity. You can ask anybody in Hollywood, even people like Harvey Weinstein, who are not known for compliments, said he was a man of enormous integrity.”

She said he was also admired for his intellect as well as his character.

“Smart at the same time. No pushover.”

Weinstein, a Hollywood legend himself known for his tough business style, is best known as the co-founder of Miramax Films.

Besides his wife, Eberts is survived by two sons and a daughter.

The 60 movies he produced include such hits as “The Name of the Rose” in 1986, “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1989, “Chicken Run” in 2000.

He was also executive producer of “Chariots of Fire” in 1981 and “Gandhi” in 1982 which won back to back Oscars.

The film legends he worked with reads like a who’s who of Hollywood – Robert de Niro, Robert Redford, Ben Kingsley, Sean Connery, Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, to name a very few.

His most recent project was the documentary “Jerusalem,” which is to be released next year, and he was also developing a multimillion-dollar film project in China.

The producer, who was born in Montreal on July 10, 1941, became an officer of the Order of Canada in 1992.

“He was the proudest of proud Canadians,” his wife said. “He loved his country.”

Fiona Eberts said her husband drew a lot of inspiration from nature “and that started in the north of Quebec, when he was brought up in Arvida.”

The filmmaker graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from McGill University in 1962 and his family has suggested that donations in his name can be made to the First People’s House, which provides support to aboriginal students at McGill.

Eberts got a master’s in business administration from the Harvard Business School in 1966. He worked in the business world for several years, including as a Wall Street broker, before turning to film financing in 1977.

He co-founded Goldcrest Films, an independent production company, in 1977 and produced the animated film “Watership Down.”

Among the films produced by the company besides “Chariots of Fire” and “Gandhi” were “The Killing Fields,” “Local Hero,” “The Howling,” and “The Dresser.”

Eberts, who quit and returned to the Goldcrest, left it for the final time in 1987, when he founded Allied Filmmakers. Besides his feature film work, he became chairman of National Geographic Feature Films in 2002.