Background and career
Sherry Lansing (born Sherry Lee Duhl; July 31, 1944) is an American former film studio executive serving as chairwoman of Universal Music Group's board of directors and as a director on the board of Paramount Skydance Corporation. She previously served as chairwoman and CEO of Paramount Pictures and president of production at 20th Century Fox before retiring. From 1999 to 2022, she was on the University of California Board of Regents. In 2005, she became the first female film studio head to place hand and footprints at the Grauman's Chinese Theater. In 2001, she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in the US by Ladies' Home Journal, and The Hollywood Reporter named her number 1 on its Power 100 list numerous times.
Lansing was born Sherry Lee Duhl in Chicago, Illinois, to Margaret Heimann and real estate investor David Duhl. Her mother fled from Nazi Germany in 1937, at the age of 17. After her father died when Lansing was nine, her mother remarried Norton S. Lansing. Her close-knit, well-to-do family is of German-Jewish descent. Lansing attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and graduated in 1962. In 1966, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Northwestern University and graduated cum laude. She was a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority.
Lansing briefly dabbled in acting in 1970, appearing as Susan in the rom-com Loving, starring Eva Marie Saint and George Segal, and Amelita in Academy Award-winning director Howard Hawks' last film Rio Lobo, starring John Wayne. Lansing also appeared in several television shows and documentaries about films, and the actors, and actresses, starring in them. Dissatisfied with her own acting skills, she decided to learn more about the film industry from the ground up.
Lansing took a job with MGM as head script reader. She then became VP of Production at Columbia Pictures and oversaw two highly successful films, The China Syndrome and Kramer vs. Kramer, both released in 1979. Her work at Columbia Pictures eventually led to an appointment with 20th Century Fox in 1980, at age 35, as the first female production president of a major studio. She resigned in December 1982 and became a partner with Stanley R. Jaffe (with whom she shares a birthday) to form Jaffe-Lansing Productions based at Paramount Pictures. The company released a consistent string of minor hits through Paramount before achieving box-office success with Fatal Attraction in 1987, for which Jaffe and Lansing received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture the following year. The partnership also produced The Accused (1988) starring Jodie Foster, about rape and its impact on a victim's life. The film featured a graphic rape scene and was highly controversial when released. Made with a small budget of $6 million, it grossed over $37 million worldwide, becoming a box office hit. Other Jaffe-Lansing productions include Black Rain (1989), starring Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, and Ken Takakura, as well as School Ties (1992), starring Brendan Fraser. On her own, Lansing produced the very successful Indecent Proposal (1993), starring Robert Redford, Demi Moore, and Woody Harrelson.
In 1992, Lansing was offered the chair of Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group. During her tenure at Paramount, the studio enjoyed its longest and most successful string of releases since the 1930s. Under Lansing, the studio produced such hits as Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Mission: Impossible, and what was, at the time, history's highest-grossing film – Titanic (the latter during a partnership with 20th Century Fox). Viacom (which purchased Paramount in 1994) split the company into two parts in 2004, and Lansing stepped down at the end of that year after an almost unprecedented twelve-year tenure atop Hollywood's legendary "Best Show in Town". She served as a Regent of the University of California from 1999 to 2022, and as chairman of the board from 2011 to 2013. She sits on the boards of the Broad Museum, The Carter Center, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, The W.M. Keck Foundation, the Lasker Foundation, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and Scripps Research. In 2007, she founded the EnCorps STEM Teachers Program, on whose board she serves as chair. She is also co-founder of the Stand Up To Cancer initiative, which funds research teams bringing cancer treatments to patients faster.
Lansing was named Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Universal Music Group in 2023.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
