Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein (born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender.

Weinstein was born on March 19, 1952, in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York City, to diamond cutter Max Weinstein (1924–1976) and his wife, Miriam (née Postel; 1926–2016).

His family is Jewish, and his maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Poland.

He grew up with his younger brother, Bob, in a housing co-op named Electchester in New York City.

Weinstein graduated from John Bowne High School and attended the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Weinstein attended the University at Buffalo from 1969 to 1973 but ultimately did not graduate, choosing to concentrate on his business interests instead.

Weinstein, his brother Bob, and Corky Burger independently produced rock concerts as Harvey & Corky Productions in Buffalo through most of the 1970s.

Harvey & Corky Productions brought top acts to Buffalo, including Frank Sinatra, The Who, Jackson Browne, and the Rolling Stones.

Weinstein's longtime friend, Jonathan A. Dandes, followed him to Buffalo and has described Weinstein as "aggressive" and "consumed" in matters of business.

In the late 1970s, using profits from their concert promotion business, Weinstein and his brother founded the independent film distribution company Miramax, named after their parents Miriam and Max.

The company's initial releases were primarily music-oriented concert films such as Paul McCartney's Rockshow.

In 1979, Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films including Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989); The Crying Game (1992); Pulp Fiction (1994); Heavenly Creatures (1994); Flirting with Disaster (1996); and Shakespeare in Love (1998).

Weinstein won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love and also won seven Tony Awards for plays and musicals including The Producers, Billy Elliot the Musical, and August: Osage County.

After leaving Miramax, Weinstein and his brother Bob founded The Weinstein Company (TWC), a mini-major film studio.

In the early 1980s, Miramax acquired the rights to two British films of benefit shows filmed for the human rights organization Amnesty International.

Working closely with Martin Lewis, the producer of the original films, the Weinstein brothers edited the two films into one movie tailored for the American market.

The Weinsteins slowly built upon this success throughout the 1980s with arthouse films which achieved critical attention and modest commercial success.

The resulting film was released as The Secret Policeman's Other Ball in May 1982, and it became Miramax's first hit.

The movie raised considerable sums of money for Amnesty International and was credited by Amnesty with having helped to raise its profile in the United States.

Harvey Weinstein and Miramax gained wider attention in 1988 with the release of Errol Morris' documentary The Thin Blue Line, which detailed the struggle of Randall Dale Adams, a wrongfully convicted inmate sentenced to death row.

The publicity that soon surrounded the case resulted in Adams' release and nationwide publicity for Miramax.

In 1989, their successful launch release of Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape propelled Miramax to become the most successful independent studio in America.

In 1989, Miramax also released two arthouse films, Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and director Pedro Almodóvar's film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, both of which received an X-rating from the MPAA rating board, effectively stopping nationwide release for these films.

Weinstein sued the MPAA over the rating system.

His lawsuit was later thrown out, but the MPAA introduced the NC-17 rating two months later.

Miramax continued to grow its library of films and directors until, in 1993, after the success of The Crying Game, Disney offered the Weinsteins $80 million for ownership of Miramax.

The brothers agreed to the deal which in turn cemented their Hollywood clout and also ensured that they would remain at the head of their company.

The following year, Miramax released its first blockbuster, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and distributed the popular independent film Clerks.

Pulp Fiction was nominated in 1995 but lost to Forrest Gump.

Miramax won its first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1997 with the victory of The English Patient.

This started a string of critical successes that included Good Will Hunting (1997) and Shakespeare in Love (1998), with both films receiving several awards, including numerous Academy Awards.

He was co-chairman, alongside Bob, from 2005 to 2017.

The Weinstein brothers left Miramax on September 30, 2005, to form their own production company, The Weinstein Company (TWC), with several other media executives, directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, and Colin Vaines, who had successfully run the production department at Miramax for ten years.

In October 2017, following sexual abuse allegations dating back to the late 1970s, Weinstein was dismissed from his company and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

More than 80 women made allegations of sexual harassment or rape against Weinstein by October 31.

The allegations sparked the #MeToo social media campaign and subsequent sexual abuse allegations against many powerful men around the world; this phenomenon is referred to as the "Weinstein effect".

In May 2018, Weinstein was arrested and charged with rape in New York and then in February 2020, he was found guilty of two of five felony counts.

Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison, and began serving his sentence at Wende Correctional Facility.

On July 20, 2021, he was extradited to Los Angeles to face further charges at a subsequent trial, where he was found guilty of three of seven charges on December 19, 2022.

He was sentenced to 16 years in the Los Angeles trial, and his California prison term must be served separately from his New York sentence.