Frank Price

William Francis Price Jr. (May 17, 1930 – August 25, 2025) was an American television writer and film studio executive. He held a number of executive positions including head of Universal TV; president, and later chairman and CEO, of Columbia Pictures; and president of Universal Pictures. He is credited with helping in the 1960s to develop the "made-for-TV movie" and the 90-minute miniseries television format, including The Virginian (1962–1970).

As a studio president, Price oversaw the production of or greenlit famous films of the 1980s including Out of Africa, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1985, Tootsie (1982), Gandhi (1982) and The Karate Kid (1984). He greenlit Howard the Duck (1986), which became one of the worst flops in film history and caused him to resign from Universal. and Ghostbusters (1984). During the Great Depression, his father moved continually in search of work; prior to college Price lived in eight cities around the country.

Price served in the United States Navy during 1948 to 1949, then attended three years of college at Michigan State University from 1949 to 1951 before transferring to Columbia University on the strength of his writing talent. In 1966, he produced one of the first movies made for television, The Doomsday Flight.

Columbia Pictures (1978–1983) Whenever I felt overly stressed, I reminded myself that it's easier than writing. It's "let's put on a show" ... and getting paid to do it. "When I left Universal, I didn't know if I could ever become president of Columbia," he once said, "but I didn't want to wake up at the age of 65 and not have taken that chance to run a movie studio."

During Price's tenure, the studio put Steven Spielberg's proposed follow up to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Night Skies, into turnaround. The project eventually became the highest-grossing film of all-time, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Columbia received a share of the profits for its involvement in the development.

After Columbia was purchased by The Coca-Cola Company in January 1982, Price lost out in a power struggle with Francis T. Vincent, chairman of Columbia Pictures Industries, over how to position Columbia in the new pay-cable TV market.

Universal Pictures (1983–1986) In November 1983, Price became chairman of the MCA Motion Picture Group, which included control of the production and distribution of Universal Pictures. He greenlit Out of Africa, which won the best-picture Oscar in 1985. However, in September 1986, Price quit Universal in fallout over the notorious flop of Howard the Duck. In 2014, the Los Angeles Times listed Howard the Duck as one of the costliest box-office flops of all time. "A duck brought Price down," lamented one producer. The company had officially established in late November 1987 as an auxiliary production arm of Tri-Star Pictures after a longer-established move, and the company had fit into the scheme at the then-pending merger with the Coca-Cola Entertainment Business Sector into Columbia Pictures Entertainment that the joint venture relationship was transferred to Columbia Pictures once the deal was finalized. In 1990, after Sony purchased Columbia Pictures, Price was approached to return to Columbia and after a series of short negotiations he was appointed chairman of Columbia Pictures.

During his time at Columbia he greenlit Boyz n the Hood (1991), Price Entertainment continued making pictures until 2001 including Shadowlands (1993), Circle of Friends (1995) and The Tuskegee Airmen (1995). Price was on the Board of Trustees of the University of Southern California since 1996. In 2022, USC awarded him an honorary degree.

Industry reflections Price came from the artistic side of the industry, starting out as a script writer. He considered this an advantage later when deciding to make a film, saying "Unwilling to base my decisions on other people's perceptions, I spent a lot of my time reading [scripts]. From what I understand, however, that's the exception rather than the rule."