Jill Sobel Messick

A graduate of Santa Barbara High School and the University of Southern California, producer Jill Messick began her career working as at The Gersh Agency, and later at Somers /Teitelbaum /David as a manager. She later worked as the director of the development at Woods Entertainment and had a hand in the production of movies like "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" (1999) and "Scream" (1996). Both movies were distributed my Miramax. In 1997, after working as a talent manager, Messick was hired at Miramax Films as the vice president of development. Her job was to bring new material into the company. She brought the movie "She's All That" (1999) to the company within a month of being hired, and worked on other movies like "Frida" (2002), and "Cinderella Man" (2005). She was promoted in 2000 to Senior Vice President of Production, a role she remained in until 2003. She then worked as an executive producer for Lorne Michaels production company and for Paramount Pictures and The Weinstein Company. She also produced the 1 season sitcom "Bad Judge" (NBC, 2014-15), her sole foray into television. Messick managed the career of actress Rose McGowan in 1997 when McGowan alleges she was raped by Harvey Weinsetin. McGowan publicly decried Messick's lack of support and alleged that Messick's job with Weinstein's companies were a reward for her playing down the allegations in the industry. McGowan wrote about the situation in her memoir Brave which was released in 2018. The negative publicity Messick received in the aftermath of the book's release caused her great distress and she took her own life in February 2018. The method of suicide was not reported.