Tom Sherak, partner in Revolution Studios and former chairman of 20th Century Fox Domestic Film Group, has been selected to receive 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from Variety – The Children’s Charity of Southern California. Jeff Goldstein, committee chair announced the selection, noting that each year the Variety, Tent 25 honors an outstanding and distinguished leader of the motion picture industry to receive this award. Goldstein, executive vice president and general sales manager for Warner Brothers Distributing said Sherak was selected in recognition of his outstanding professional accomplishments and to acknowledge his career–long efforts on behalf of humanitarian causes and philanthropic pursuits.
Tom Sherak has spent 37 remarkable years in the entertainment industry. His latest venture, Revolution Consulting Services, is a company he formed specializing in marketing and distribution of motion pictures. He has spent the past 7 years as a Partner at Revolution Studios – following a hugely successful 19 years at Twentieth Century Fox, where he most recently held the title of chairman. Throughout his career, Sherak has been instrumental in bringing hundreds of movies to audiences around the world, including such groundbreaking films as “Black Hawk Down,” “Anger Management,” and “Hellboy” while at Revolution Studios and “Die Hard,” “Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Speed,” “Independence Day,” “The X–Files,” and “Star Wars: Episode 1 –The Phantom Menace” from Fox. In addition, he is deeply committed to a number of community and charitable organizations, including the Southern California Multiple Sclerosis Society, Tent 25, the Southern California Chapter of Variety – The Children’s Charity, and the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Quills Literacy Foundation, the Fulfillment Fund, the Motion Picture and Television Fund and sits on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Under Sherak’s guidance as chair of the Southern California Multiple Sclerosis Society’s “Dinner of Champions,” the annual event has raised more than $35 million in the last 15 years.
The majority of the proceeds generated from a highly coveted tribute journal honoring Tom Sherak will be directed to the capital building fund for the Variety Boys and Girls Club, a vital haven for children in the East Los Angeles area since 1949. A new, state of the art 27,650 square foot building will provide crucial services and greater opportunities for many more children in this impoverished and gang-ridden area. In addition to the numerous services currently available for children at the Boys and Girls Club, the new facility will also include centers for career and college guidance, learning and technology, fitness and training, media, and a designated teen center.