Sherry Lansing

Sherry Lansing (born July 31, 1944) is an American former actress and film studio executive. She is a former CEO of Paramount Pictures, and when she was the president of production at 20th Century Fox, she was the first woman to head a Hollywood movie studio. In 1996, she became the first woman to be named Pioneer of the Year by the Foundation of the Motion Picture Pioneers, and she was the first female movie studio head to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2005, she became the first female movie studio head to place hand and foot prints at the Grauman's Chinese Theater. In 2001, she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies' Home Journal, and The Hollywood Reporter named her fourth on its Power 100 list in 2003.

Personal life

Lansing was born Sherry Lee Duhl in Chicago, Illinois on July 31, 1944. Her mother, Margaret "Margot" Heimann, fled from Nazi Germany in 1937 at the age of 17. Her father, David Duhl, was a real-estate investor who died when she was nine. Her mother remarried and died in 1984 from ovarian cancer. She was raised in a Jewish household. Lansing attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and graduated in 1962. In 1966, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Northwestern University, where she was a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority.