Jerry Bruckheimer

Producer / Filmmaker

One of the most successful Hollywood producers since the 1980s, Jerry Bruckheimer makes big-budget spectacles that cause critics to stick their noses up and moviegoers to put their money down. Bruckheimer, who got his start in New York making commercials, began producing movies in the early 1980s. The surprise success of 1983's Flashdance made him hot property in Hollywood, and from the mid-1980s until 1996 Bruckheimer and his partner, producer Don Simpson, were behind blockbuster hits such as Beverly Hills Cop (1984, starring Eddie Murphy), Top Gun (1986, starring Tom Cruise) and Bad Boys (1995, starring Will Smith). After 1996's The Rock (starring Sean Connery), Bruckheimer and Simpson parted ways, in large part because of Simpson's wild excesses (a hardcore partygoer and drug user, Simpson died of heart failure in 1996). On his own, Bruckheimer has continued his streak of box office blockbusters, including Armageddon (1998, with Bruce Willis), Remember the Titans (2000, with Denzel Washington) and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003, starring Johnny Depp). His production company develops shows for television also, including The Amazing Race, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and E-Ring (with Dennis Hopper and Benjamin Bratt)