Jay Kanter, a prolific film producer and agent to Hollywood personalities such as Marlon Brando, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe, has died. He was 97.
Kanter died of natural causes on August 6 at his home in Beverly Hills, his son Adam Kanter confirmed.
The veteran studio executive began his career in the MCA mailroom, rising to become an assistant to Lew Wasserman (who represented Bette Davis and Ronald Reagan, and later chaired MCA) and eventually a junior agent.
In 1948, Kanter, then 22, was sent to pick up Brando from the train station after his breakout role in Broadway's “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He drove the budding star to his aunt and uncle's house in San Marino, where they all had dinner.
The next day, after Brando's meeting with director Fred Zinnemann and screenwriter Carl Foreman, Kanter asked the actor to come to the MCA office to meet the other agents.
“[Brando] “He said, ‘I don’t have to meet with anybody, you’re my agent,’” Kanter said. remembered in 2017.
At the time, he said, Wasserman was getting non-stop calls from studio heads who were eager to sign Brando.
“Lew said, ‘Well, I can’t set it up, you’d have to talk to his agent,’” Kanter said. “They asked him, ‘Who is it?’ and he said, ‘Jay Kanter,’ and they asked him, ‘Who is it?’”
A few years later, Kanter was already representing a bevy of top talent. And his meeting with Brando spawned a sitcom, “The Famous Teddy Z,” about a Hollywood star who chooses a mailroom clerk as his agent. (Kanter also reportedly inspired the Jack Lemmon character in Billy Wilder’s 1960 comedy “The Apartment.”)
Jay Ira Kanter was born on December 12, 1926 in Chicago to Muriel (Gordon) and Harry Kanter and spent his formative years in Los Angeles. At age 17 he joined the Navy and later came to MCA after serving during World War II.
After the talent agency bought Universal Pictures in 1962, Kanter moved to London and for seven years greenlit European films for the studio. When Universal closed its European operations, he returned to the United States to start a production company with industry executives Elliott Kastner and Alan Ladd Jr.
Kanter and Ladd spent much of the 1970s and 1980s working together at Fox, United Artists and Ladd Co., and later helped produce such blockbusters as “Star Wars,” “Alien” and “Blade Runner.”
Kanter was also a longtime friend of veteran comedian Mel Brooks. In the 1990s, the two began hosting weekly luncheons for a circle of former Fox executives and filmmakers. The week before his death, Kanter attended one such Friday luncheon.
Streams praised Kanter on the day of his death: “Today is very sad news. I’ve met a lot of good people in my life, but no one is better than Jay Kanter. If you knew him, you loved him. He was more than just a legendary agent. He was a loyal friend, always there when you needed him. I know it’s a cliché, but in Jay’s case it’s very true: he will be greatly missed.”
After his first two marriages (to Roberta Haynes and Judy Balaban) ended in divorce, Kanter entered into his third and longest marriage in 1965, to Kit Bennett, who died in 2014 after 49 years together.
She is survived by her son, Adam Kanter, from her marriage to Bennett; her son, Michael Kanter, from her third marriage; a daughter, Amy Kanter, from her second marriage; three stepchildren from her third marriage, Tom, Dustin, and Cydney Bernard; and 10 grandchildren. Another daughter from her second marriage, Victoria Kanter Colombetti, deceased in 2020.
