Helene Hahn Lloyd

Lloyd died peacefully in her sleep on 24 October 2026 at her home in Park City, Utah, according to her management team. She was 78. No specific medical cause of death has been made public. Her death came only months after that of her husband. Trade outlets including Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and TheWrap reported the news in early November 2026. No public memorial service details were announced with the first reports. The family asked that donations in Helene and Chuck's memory be made to U.S. Ski and Snowboard, reflecting their shared love of skiing and support for younger athletes.

Helene Hahn Lloyd was born Helene Burlakoff on 13 July 1948 in Westbury, New York, the youngest of three children. She graduated from Hofstra University in 1970 and moved west to Los Angeles. While attending Loyola Law School she worked temporarily at Paramount Pictures, an early foothold in the studio system that would define her career. She earned her Juris Doctor in 1975 and was admitted to the bar that year. Contemporary reference works also note early work as an instructor in entertainment law at Loyola and as an attorney with ABC Television before her long studio tenure.

Lloyd rejoined Paramount Pictures as a staff attorney in 1977. Within two years she moved into business affairs and rose quickly: director in 1980, vice president in 1981 and senior vice president by 1983. There she worked with Jeffrey Katzenberg and established herself as a formidable dealmaker.

In 1984 she joined Walt Disney Pictures as senior vice president of business and legal affairs, becoming the first woman to head those areas at a major motion picture studio according to later biographical summaries. She was named executive vice president of Walt Disney Studios in 1987 and remained one of Hollywood's highest-ranking female executives through the studio's renaissance years. Working with Katzenberg, she helped guide major commercial partnerships, including the studio's landmark relationship with Pixar.

When Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen founded DreamWorks SKG in 1994, Lloyd was among the first executives hired. She served as co-chief operating officer with Ron Nelson, helping draft the ten-year business plan and structure equity investments that organized production, distribution and marketing. After Nelson left in January 2003 she became sole COO, overseeing all business and legal affairs and negotiating cornerstone deals with HBO, ABC, Universal Distribution and key executives. Katzenberg, who relied on her counsel during his late-1990s lawsuit against Disney, said it was not possible to overstate their nearly thirty-year partnership. She stepped down as COO in 2004 as DreamWorks Animation prepared its IPO, citing both the splitting of responsibilities and her Utah residence, and continued as a consultant for about a year.

In 1999 she married businessman Charles "Chuck" Lloyd Jr. After the marriage her primary residence was in Park City, Utah, and she often commuted to Los Angeles while still at DreamWorks. Obituaries noted that she mentored many younger women who later became entertainment executives. After leaving the studio she settled fully in Park City and pursued skiing with what her official obituary called the same ferocity she had applied to dealmaking. Chuck Lloyd died in July 2026. Published reports of her life and death do not name children.

Lloyd belonged to a small group of women who held top business and legal posts across multiple Hollywood studios in the late twentieth century. Her path from Paramount staff attorney to Disney executive vice president and DreamWorks founding COO traced three decades of studio dealmaking beside Katzenberg, spanning Paramount, the Disney renaissance and the creation of DreamWorks. Colleagues and trade coverage remembered her as both a tough negotiator and a mentor to women rising in entertainment management. The business architecture she helped put in place at DreamWorks, from early equity structures to distribution and output deals, underpinned the studio through its formative decade.