Jake Eberts

A former Wall Street investor, the Montreal-born Jake Eberts began his career in features in the early 1970s arranging financing. After relocating to London, England, where he eventually rose to managing director of Oppenheimer & Co., Ltd., he founded Goldcrest Films, a successful independent production company involved with such high-profile films as Richard Attenborough's Oscar-winning "Gandhi" (1982), Bill Forsyth's "Local Hero" (1983) and Roland Joffe's "The Killing Fields" (1984). Eberts served as president and CEO of Goldcrest until 1983 when he joined Embassy Pictures. In 1985, he founded Allied Filmmakers and the following year made his debut as executive producer with Jean-Jacques Annaud's "The Name of the Rose" (1986). Among the other features this risk-taking maverick produced or executive produced are John Boorman's Academy Award-nominated memoir of WWII London "Hope and Glory" (1987), the back-to-back Oscar winners "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989) and "Dances With Wolves" (1990), Robert Redford's "A River Runs Through It" (1992) and the delightful children's film "James and the Giant Peach" (1995). He returned to films with Native American themes as producer or executive producer of "The Education of Little Tree" (1997) and Attenborough's "Grey Owl" (1999). Eberts also served as an executive producer on the first feature from Aardman Animation, "Chicken Run" (2000), co-directed by Peter Lord and three-time Oscar-winner Nick Park. The maverick passed away on Sept. 6, 2012 in Montreal.