Arnold Kopelson, the Oscar-winning producer of “Platoon” and “The Fugitive” and a former longtime CBS board member, has died. He was 83.
Kopelson died at 6 a.m. on Monday in his Beverly Hills home, his wife and longtime producing partner, Anne Kopelson, told the Los Angeles Times. He died of natural causes after battling a slew of age-related health issues, she said.
“Our lives were intertwined,” she told The Times. We were lifelong partners in love and business. We finished each other’s sentences. We were a unit. One person. We had a successful career because we understood each other.”
While she handled the financial side of Kopelson Entertainment, he handled the creative side, regarding himself as a hands-on producer rather than as a “packaging agent” putting together deals.
Before becoming the maker of big-budget action movies such as “Se7en,” “The Devil’s Advocate” and “U.S. Marshals,” Kopelson worked in entertainment and banking law, where he specialized in motion-picture financing. He and his wife formed a foreign-distribution company called Inter-Ocean Film Sales in 1972 that would later become Kopelson Entertainment.
During their 42 years together, the Kopelsons traveled the world meeting distributors and studying foreign markets when the independent film industry was still in its nascent stages, according to The Times.
“Without him it’s not Kopelson Entertainment,” she said, confirming that she would probably not carry on with their decades-old company after his death.