Film & TV / Business & brands
Robert Shaye
born 1939 · film executive, producer, director, actor
Detroit-born founder of New Line Cinema, the studio behind A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Lord of the Rings, and a graduate of Mumford High School.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 87- Birth name
- Robert Kenneth Shaye
- Also known as
- Bob Shaye
- Detroit years
- 1939–c. 1957
- Field
- Film & TV, Business & brands
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Robert Shaye was born in Detroit on March 4, 1939, into a Jewish family; his father, Max Mendle Shaye, ran a supermarket and was also an artist, and his mother was an immigrant from Russia. He grew up in the city and graduated from Mumford High School on the northwest side before earning a business degree at the University of Michigan and a law degree at Columbia. In 1967 he founded New Line Cinema in New York, first renting films to college campuses, then re-releasing cult titles and distributing foreign films. The company grew into a major studio with A Nightmare on Elm Street and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it was Shaye who urged Peter Jackson to make The Lord of the Rings as three films instead of two; the trilogy earned 17 Academy Awards. He also directed Book of Love and The Last Mimzy and often appeared in small roles in his own productions.
Highlights
- Founded New Line Cinema in 1967
- Backed A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
- Pushed The Lord of the Rings to become a three-film trilogy (17 Oscars)
- Directed Book of Love (1990), The Last Mimzy (2007) and Ambition (2019)
- Graduate of Detroit's Mumford High School
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1950s
Mumford High School
Shaye graduated from this northwest Detroit public high school before going to the University of Michigan.