Jerry Tokofsky

Jerry Herbert Tokofsky (April 14, 1934 – October 5, 2025) was an American agent, film producer and studio executive.

Early life Tokofsky was born in Brooklyn, New York City on April 14, 1934, the son of Julius H. Tokofsky and his wife Rose Trager.

Career Tokofsky began his connection with the film business as an agent, and by the 1960s had become a studio executive at Columbia Pictures. In 1966, he was a vice-president of Columbia. He then produced films for the studio. In 1967, Mike Frankovich assigned the review of Ford's contract with Columbia to Tokofsky, and he terminated it,

By 1968, Tokofsky had become head of Columbia's creative affairs department, which had the tasks of evaluating scripts and overseeing actors, directors, and producers. He took on Peter Guber as his assistant and later spoke warmly of Guber's usefulness to him.

By the early 1970s, Tokofsky was producing films for United Artists and others.

In 1986, at the suggestion of Irvin Kershner, Tokofsky and Stanley Zupnik paid David Mamet one million dollars for the film rights to his award-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, but it took them several years to raise the money to make the film, as no major studio would touch it.

Personal life and death On February 21, 1956, Tokofsky married Myrna Weinstein, and before divorcing they had two sons; in 1970, he married secondly Fiammetta Bettuzzi, and they had a daughter, but this also ended in divorce; thirdly, on October 4, 1981, he married Karen Oliver.