Jack Valenti, Dead at 85

saforrest writes "Jack Valenti, a man whose influence in both Washington and Hollywood was profound, died today at age 85. He first became famous as special assistant to Lyndon Johnson: he can even be seen in the famous photo aboard Air Force One. In 1966, he quit this job to become president of the MPAA, from 1966 to 2004."

Obligatory

[Joey Patterson]

I say to you that a stroke is to Jack Valenti as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

RIP, Jack!

Did Netcraft Confirm It?

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't believe until it's confirmed!

-Nick

connection reset by peer

[Anonymous Coward]

pwned

Bye bye, Jack.

[Anonymous Coward]

May Satan put you in a screening room with nothing but heavily blocked and poorly encoded DivX movies playing 24x7xInfinity.

Rest in Peace, sweet prince.

Re:Frosty piss...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use a urinal for a tombstone!

Odd thing to note

[DoofusOfDeath]

Why did the media leave out the part about someone driving a wooden stake through his heart?

Until I see that footage, I'm not going to believe tha...

(Hold on - someone's at the door.)

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH.....

.torrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

.torrent?

Rest in Hell, Jack

[Rupan]

I'll be sending your wife and children burned copies of my DVD collection to include in your casket. May you be infuriated by them for eternity.

Re:Bye bye, Jack.

[plover]

Screening nothing but Adam Sandler movies. After all, he's not there for the entertainment.

Now let's be nice

[sterno]

The man's dead, show some respect. Let's have a moment of silence in his honor. Oh... wait, my moment of silence is actually encrypted using DRM that I lost the license key for. I'd reverse engineer it but I don't want to get in trouble...

Re:Can we be civil?

[QuantumG]

In an earlier time, Jack Valenti would have been a lord buying favours from the king.

The people would have lived in fear of his insanity.

Thankfully a knight might have challenged Jack and killed him in combat.

In the modern world we just have to wait for old age (or scandel) and hope the next guy to pay off the powers that be will be less effective.

Don't ruin the hope.

Re:Rest in Hell, Jack

[plover]

As long as they're all MPAA-certified-genuine DVDs, his body will be at peace because you already paid for them.

Now, if you were to send him copies of your movies, or better yet, copies of your friends' movies, we might want to attach magnets to his body, mount coils in the coffin, and use the spinning to generate enough electricity to power The Pirate Bay for the next year.

Re:Good riddence

[BandwidthHog]

Nah, just bury him face down.

By the time he digs all the way to daylight, hell come up just in time to terrorize China’s thriving movie industry.

Re:Frosty piss...

[biocute]

Well, I guess all modern days villains' first request in hell would be "May I read the Slashdot homepage?"

That'd be their final judgement.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think thats fair; take a look at the man's bio on wikipedia, he was at one time a valuable member of the human race, and flew 51 combat missions as the pilot of a B-25 during WWII.

Oh so you mean aside from a Financial rapist, this guy was also a government sanctioned murderer?

Fucking sweet!!

Re:mod parent up

[jimmydevice]

Silentchris throws another log of karma on the fire.

Darth Valenti

[Kadin2048]

It wasn't until he got into politics that he turned evil, and after all, didn't we forgive Darth Vader at the end?

"He's more politician than man now, twisted and evil ... "

Sad news ... Jack Valenti, dead at 85

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - asshole and excessively litigating prick Jack Valenti was found dead in his Washington mansion this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his approach to suing anything that moved, there's no denying his contributions to the fat wallet of MPAA members everywhere. Truly an American icon.

What!

[Eric Damron]

"We don't have to celebrate his death..."

Okay, that's it... You're out of the club!

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't get an attorney, do you at least get a continental breakfast and a little mint on your pillow? Those civil suites sound like a total ripoff.

Re:mod parent up

[kypper]

He should have been hung as an enemy of our rights as Americans.
He may well have been hung, but I believe you meant hanged [wikipedia.org]...

And in other news...

[isotope23]

And in other news, Satan has relocated to Arizona. When asked to comment on the change of venue,
he stated : "There's only enough room for one of us down there, and though I invented Lawyers this guy owns them all."

Re:Frosty piss...

[bshensky]

Your piss deserves better.

Re:Now let's be nice

[natrius]

Not only that, but since you're having this moment of silence in a public place, you'll be sued by John Cage for a public performance of 4'33" without his consent.

Re:Frosty piss...

[some damn guy]

Not me. I'm waiting for it to show up on TorrentSpy.

Re:Bye bye, Jack.

[britneys 9th husband]

The 100 greatest movies of all time. On DVD. 60 inch plasma TV. Sound system on loan from Heaven. Region 1 DVDs, region 3 player.

Re:This is a day I'll never forget!

[ari_j]

And that, Alanis, is ironic.

You're right, I was so wrong

[Travoltus]

The French, back in the day, had a better way of handling people like that.

It was called the Guillotine.

America's problem is we hate the French and did not learn to emulate them in this case.

obligatory quote from

[alexandreracine]

Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things right now: Jack and shit... and Jack left town.

Re:Perhaps it's time for YOU to think?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Are you seriously lumping Hitler, Castro and Valenti together?
REALLY?

You're right, that's silly, Castro isn't even dead yet...

Re:mod parent up

[xerxesVII]

He may well have been hung, but I believe you meant hanged [wikipedia.org]...

But was he well hung?

Re:Obligatory

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

And he was part of the media coverup of the Kennedy assasination.

Darker thhan you have ever imagined.

Re:Obligatory

[adona1]

Myself, I'm going to breach copyright by singing "Ding Dong the witch is dead" a few times ;)

Re:Did Netcraft Confirm It?

[Greyfox]

He's actually been dead for some time. The walking dead. Nothing much is going to change really. His corpse will still rise up every night and feast upon the living. He'll still be an abomination in the eyes of God. He's just taking a little ground rest for a few years. He'll be back worse than ever around 2015.

Re:Obligatory

[Wiseman1024]

Ha ha ha, the old man kicked the bucket. Yay! The world's pest population just went down by one. Hope the next mafiaa bigshot dies soon.

Tags: yay haha lol pwned owned mafiaa money business

Re:Did Netcraft Confirm It?

[Dogtanian]

Netcraft confirmed it; they also reliably inform me that, yes, Jack Valenti *could* run Linux.

Further reports of Valenti's death are coming in; for reasons that are as yet unclear, he was found naked and petrified in Soviet Russia. When as we all know, old people like Valenti live in South Korea. And.... UUURGH!!!

(Dogtanian is yanked off the stage by several angry mods)

....Natalie Portman has been implicated in the death and....UMMMMFFF!!!!...

(RIP Dogtanian's karma, 2002 to 2007)

Re:Obligatory

[DerFeuervogel]

This is my "New e-mail" sound for the day. Thank you for the idea.
MP3 Link here:
http://www.cyberbee.com/yesteryear/oz_37.mp3 [cyberbee.com]

Re:Good

[Doug Neal]

You can't just absolve someone, for no reason.

Unless you're Catholic!

Re:connection reset by peer

[kalirion]

peer? I'd think he was kickbanned by the superuser.

You forgot...

[ashitaka]

...smothered in hot grits.

$%*&^*^#^!@!# (CONNECTION LOST)