For more than three decades, Jonathan Taplin’s
career has been full and varied, spanning the
worlds of music, film, high finance and technology.
Taplin’s introduction into the entertainment
business began in 1965, when he was just 18 years
old. The summer before his freshman year at Princeton
University, Taplin ventured to The Newport Folk
Festival, where he landed a job with The Jim Kweskin
Jug Band. That experience led to a dream job,
serving as road manager for Bob Dylan and The
Band. Taplin witnessed firsthand the birth of
folk rock with Dylan’s performances, and
for the next seven years, Taplin worked for the
musical poet and The Band.
Then in 1974 he moved to Hollywood to pursue his
dream of producing films. He arrived in Los Angeles
with just one referral to seek out, a young director
named Martin Scorsese. Together they produced
Mean Streets, starring Robert DeNiro and Harvey
Keitel. The project became a critical and box
office success, and went on to be selected for
The Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996,
Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries
(including “The Prize” and “Cadillac
Desert” for PBS) and 12 feature films including
The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under
Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated
for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for
The Cannes Film Festival seven times. His television
work garnered three Emmy nominations.
After 10 years of producing films, Taplin acted
as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers
in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney
Studios from a corporate raid. This experience
brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served
as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions.
In this role, he helped re-engineer the media
landscape with such feats as helping in the leveraged
buyout of Viacom.
In 1996, Taplin and a group of engineers formed
Intertainer in order to create a new kind of media
system called Video On Demand. He raised more
than $100 million from companies like Microsoft,
Intel, GE Capital, NBC, Sony, Comcast and Merrill
Lynch. They created most of the standard systems
for the IP transmission of high quality video
and audio and also created systems for cable companies
to deploy VOD. Taplin and his colleagues were
awarded several patents for their technological
breakthroughs. Intertainer deployed VOD systems
in the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, China
and New Zealand.
Taplin was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He graduated
prep school from Brooks School in North Andover,
Massachusetts and from college at Princeton University.
He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory board
of the Democracy Collaborative at the University
of Maryland. |
