Yablans was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York to Annette and Morris Yablans. His father was a Brooklyn cab driver. His older brother is film producer Irwin Yablans of Halloween fame.
Career
Yablans entered the motion picture business in 1956 joining Warner Bros. sales force. In 1959, he joined Buena Vista as the Milwaukee sales manager where he stayed until 1966. He joined Sigma III and later transitioned to Filmways after they acquired Sigma III. He became Executive Vice President of Sales for Paramount Pictures in June 1969. In that position, his expert marketing of the film Love Story led to his appointment as Paramount Studios' President on May 10, 1971. As head of Paramount, he oversaw the release of such classic movies as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and Chinatown. He also personally supervised the 100th birthday celebrations of studio founder Adolph Zukor in January 1973. Seven weeks after Barry Diller moved above him as chairman and chief executive office of Paramount in September 1974, Yablans announced his resignation as president on November 8, 1974, taking effect from January 5, 1975. Following the end of his presidency, he became an independent producer, working primarily through Paramount and 20th Century Fox. He was executive producer of such films as Silver Streak, The Other Side of Midnight, Congo, and the popular HBO series "Rome." He also wrote and produced North Dallas Forty and Mommie Dearest, the latter winning the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay. Yablans was then recruited by Kirk Kerkorian to head his troubled and debt-laden film company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While Yablans' reorganization of MGM and United Artists into a single entity as MGM/UA served to reduce costs and overhead, the company continued to lose value and in 1986 was purchased by Ted Turner Productions for a reported $1.25 billion. In 2003, Yablans founded Promenade Pictures, a production company committed to the production of "family-friendly" entertainment, with their most ambitious project the "Epic Stories of the Bible" series of CGI-animated features, inaugurated with The Ten Commandments and Noah's Ark: The New Beginning.
Death
Yablans died on Thanksgiving, November 27, 2014, from natural causes at the age of 79. He had three children - Robert Yablans, Sharon Abrams, and Edward Yablans - and a long-time companion, Nadia Pandolfo.
