“Can you just give me one of your leftover sharks?”
It was early in Jay Stein’s tenacious pursuit to show a throwaway enterprise right into a candy spot for Common Studios, then owned by Lew Wasserman’s powerhouse leisure agency MCA.
In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” was a cultural sensation and Stein needed to capitalize on the film’s success. He requested his colleagues in movie manufacturing for props so his crews may re-create the fictional Amity Island shoreline within the studio’s hilly again lot miles from downtown L.A.
“He convinced them: ‘Can you just give me one of the leftover sharks and I’ll put it on the studio tour, and we’ll get some promotion out of that,’ ” writer Sam Gennawey informed The Occasions, recalling Stein’s brilliance and his pioneering use of mental property.
Jay Stein together with his spouse, Connie, in Oregon.
(Connie Stein)
Stein died Nov. 5 at his dwelling in Bend, Ore., in keeping with his spouse, Connie Stein. He was 88 and had been affected by problems associated to Parkinson’s illness and prostate most cancers.
“He left a big hole — but he also left a wonderful legacy,” she mentioned in an interview Sunday. “Not a lot of people have the opportunity to leave a legacy that touches generations. But he’s still making people smile every day.”
The tram tour’s shark assault, which terrified vacationers when it debuted in 1976, has lengthy been a staple. It was amongst Stein’s many theme park enhancements throughout his greater than 30 years as a high MCA government, which included Common’s push into Florida to compete with Walt Disney Co.
The “Jaws” attraction helped cement Common’s decades-long relationship with Spielberg, a span that would come with such movies as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and “The Fabelmans.” It additionally spawned different movie-themed points of interest that included a “Waterworld” stay present and a “King Kong” journey.
Stein insisted that the ape would spew “banana breath,” his spouse mentioned.
Inside Common, such jolts and prospers turned generally known as “JayBangs,” which Gennawey used because the title for his 2016 e book about Stein’s contributions to the trade, “JayBangs: How Jay Stein, MCA, & Universal Invented the Modern Theme Park and Beat Disney at Its Own Game.”
“Jay wanted to put you in the movie,” Gennawey mentioned. “He wanted to grab you by the collar and shake you a bit.”
The “Runaway Train” attraction on the Common Studios backlot tour, one in all its many exhilarating “JayBangs.”
(NBCUniversal Archives & Collections)
Stein was born in New York Metropolis on June 17, 1937, to Samuel and Sylvia “Sunny” (Goldstein) Stein.
His father was a watch salesman who moved the household to Los Angeles when Stein was younger. As an adolescent, he often skipped faculty to go to Hollywood Park Racetrack to wager on horses. He had finagled some clean report playing cards and used them to carry dwelling self-inserted excessive marks.
However the rip-off was revealed when the household briefly moved again to New York and Stein was nearing the top of highschool. His mother and father had been summoned for a convention, the place they realized Stein lacked the credit to graduate. Summer time faculty remedied that.
The household returned to L.A. Stein attended UC Berkeley, majoring in political science, however he left a couple of semester shy of graduating.
He served within the Military Nationwide Guard and, close to the top of his service, in 1959, started working in MCA’s mailroom. Initially he needed to get into movie manufacturing, however by the mid-Sixties, he was steered into the fledgling tour unit.
The corporate had launched the tram tour in 1964 to make slightly cash from its ample actual property. However some executives considered the endeavor as cheesy. Its prospects appeared dim.
“It started out as two trams and a Quonset hut on Lankershim Boulevard,” Stein informed The Occasions in a 2023 interview. “Quite frankly, the tram was considered something that interfered with television production.”
“I worked for the production office and was given the task of trying to coordinate how close we could come on the backlot without interfering. Everyone I worked for said it was an annoyance and disruptive and will not ever be welcomed.”
Stein was in a position “to convince others of the benefits of having the studio tour,” Gennawey mentioned. “That’s what saved it.”
Early signage promoting Common Studios as a vacationer attraction.
(NBCUniversal Archives & Collections)
Gennawey considers Stein a key pioneer of U.S. theme parks.
“He was remarkably competitive. He recognized that Disney had its thing — but Universal could create something different and complimentary, particularly in the early days,” Gennawey mentioned.
Disneyland was, after all, a high draw.
“But if you are a Los Angeles resident and had relatives coming in town, you knew they [also] wanted to see Hollywood,” Gennawey mentioned. “But Hollywood was kind of scary, so you took them to Universal Studios.”
Stein’s contributions have solely just lately been appreciated, in keeping with Gennawey. That’s largely as a result of Stein subscribed to Wasserman’s edict that the “stars were the stars,” and executives ought to mix into the background. Stein additionally retired early, leaving Common by the mid-Nineteen Nineties, after Japanese electronics large Matsushita purchased MCA.
Guests line up for the studio tour of Common Studios.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
Stein nervous that Common’s new proprietor (and a string of subsequent patrons) would fail to acknowledge the worth of the theme parks, Gennawey mentioned, an remark that proved right.
That modified in 2011 when Comcast acquired NBCUniversal and commenced investing closely.
The corporate opened its $7-billion theme park, Common Epic Universe, close to Orlando, Fla., to raves earlier this 12 months.
The theme park unit — which incorporates locations in Los Angeles, Florida, Japan and China — has turn into probably the most dependable revenue engines for NBCUniversal. Final 12 months, Common theme parks produced $8.6 billion in income.
“Jay was the visionary behind Universal’s expansion from the Studio Tour in Hollywood to the creation of our world-class theme park destination at Universal Orlando and beyond,” Mark Woodbury, chairman and chief government of Common Locations & Experiences, mentioned in a press release.
“He had tremendous creative instincts and defined our style of immersive storytelling, making us the brand that brings great movies to life for generations to come,” Woodbury mentioned.
Stein is survived by his spouse, son Gary Stein, daughter Darolyn Bellemeur, and their spouses, youngsters and grandchildren, his brother Ira Stein, a nephew, cousins in addition to Connie Stein’s youngsters and grandchildren.
