Richard S. Reisberg

Richard S. Reisberg died on Wednesday, 23 September 2026, at his home in Woodland Hills, California, after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 85. His family announced the death and recalled that nothing mattered more to him than his family.

No public funeral details had been announced at the time of the first trade obituaries. In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations in his memory be made to Alzheimer's Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter published a career remembrance the day after his death.

Richard S. Reisberg was born in the Bronx, New York, on 24 May 1941, the son of Sidney and Lillian (Adler) Reisberg. He attended high school in Long Beach on Long Island, then earned a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University. While working, he studied law at night and received his law degree from Fordham University.

He entered the media business through the broadcast department of advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in New York, then moved into network business affairs roles at ABC, CBS and NBC. Those early posts gave him a grounding in contracts, production finance and the day-to-day workings of American television that shaped the rest of his career.

Reisberg joined Viacom International and became a senior vice president before the company relocated him to Los Angeles in 1972. From 1978 to 1981 he was president of Viacom Productions. He then became president of United Artists Television and later headed the merged MGM/UA Television Productions through 1985, when the studio's slate included popular series such as CHiPs and Fame.

From 1985 to 1994 he served as president and chief operating officer of Reeves Entertainment. He later became president of Lionsgate Television and afterwards ran a consulting practice. As an executive producer he was associated with the acclaimed 1980 NBC telefilm Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb and with the 1999 CBS sitcom Payne, an American remake of Fawlty Towers. His producing credits also include the 1997 television movie Trucks.

Across more than four decades he moved between studio leadership, business affairs and production, overseeing a wide range of network programming while building a reputation for practical problem-solving inside large entertainment companies.

In 2001 Reisberg joined the arbitration and mediation service JAMS as a full-time mediator and arbitrator. His practice covered automobile, class action, complex commercial, employment, entertainment, finance and intellectual property disputes. Having spent more than twenty-five years as a senior executive, he brought operational experience to settlement talks. His family said he loved finding common ground and had a way of helping others find it too.

He taught mediation at Pepperdine University's Caruso School of Law for more than fifteen years. Married to Judy for nearly 57 years, he was the father of Jennifer and Stephanie and grandfather to Oliver, Tyler, Ella and Layla. Outside the office he enjoyed fly fishing and cooking family meals, including chili and linguine with clams.

Reisberg is remembered as a studio executive who helped steer television production at Viacom, MGM/UA, Reeves and Lionsgate through changing network eras, and later as a mediator who put the same instincts for negotiation into resolving entertainment and business disputes. Colleagues and family pointed to his patience, objectivity and gift for bringing people together.

His teaching at Pepperdine carried those skills to a new generation of lawyers and mediators. Through family memorial gifts to Alzheimer's Los Angeles, his name remains linked to support for people living with the disease that ended his life.