A Conversation with Jack Valenti: DuBridge Distinguished Lecture
- Public Event
This event was digitally recorded and is available for viewing on the Caltech Theater site.Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) joins Los Angeles Times entertainment reporter James Bates in an open-ended conversation.
Valenti served as a special adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson, but is best known for his long tenure as head of the MPAA. In his pivotal role of leadership over both the motion picture and television industries, Valenti has provided guidance in an era of fundamental change in both the industry and American society.
A Houston native, Valenti graduated from high school at age 15 and earned degrees from the University of Houston and Harvard University. As a bomber pilot and commander in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, he flew 51 combat missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with four clusters, the Distinguished Unit Citation with one cluster, and the European Theater Ribbon with four battle stars.
After the war he cofounded the Weekley & Valenti advertising and political consulting agency, and in 1955 met then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, with whom he would form a close political association. Valenti's agency was in charge of the news media during the fateful November 1963 visit of Kennedy to Texas, and Valenti was riding in the motorcade when Kennedy was assassinated.
Within an hour of the assassination, Valenti was accompanying Johnson on Air Force One on the way back to Washington, D.C., as the new president's special assistant.
Valenti left the Johnson Administration early in order to assume the MPAA leadership in 1966, becoming only the third person to hold the position since the organization's founding in 1922. His many accomplishments at the MPAA include establishing the rating system in the late 1960s, which is still used in essentially its original form today. He has also been at the forefront of the effort to stop what has become a popular and casual practice: downloading pirated movies and songs off the Internet for free.
Valenti has written four books: The Bitter Taste of Glory, A Very Human President, Speak Up With Confidence, and the political novel Protect and Defend.
Among his honors are a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, life membership in the Directors Guild of America, and France's Legion d'Honneur.
Lee A. DuBridge (1901-1994), internationally acclaimed scientist and administrator, was Caltech's president from 1946 to 1969, when he became science advisor to President Nixon. Called America's "senior statesman of science" by Time magazine in 1955, DuBridge was considered an exemplary research-university president in an era of vast scientific, societal, and educational change; he guided the growth of the modern Caltech, while maintaining a breadth of view, an understanding of and an interest in national affairs that was rare among university presidents. He was also a first-rate physicist, a leader in research that was of immense importance to the Allied victory in World War II.As a memorial to DuBridge and his numerous contributions to Caltech, Southern California, and the nation, Caltech has established the Lee Alvin DuBridge Distinguished Lecture Series to bring to campus prominent speakers of national and/or international importance. Prior lecturers in the series have been veteran journalist Walter Cronkite, financier Warren Buffett, and Nobel Peace Prize-winner John Hume.