Tova Laiter

Tova Laiter is an American Hollywood film producer. She is perhaps best known for producing the 1999 hit Varsity Blues for MTV & Paramount Pictures. Before becoming an independent producer, Tova served the film industry as an executive including long stints at Imagine entertainment, and Hollywood Pictures where she worked on such hits as Evita and Glory. Recently produced films include Elvis Has Left The Building, starring Kim Basinger. Her next film (in pre-production) is entitled 10A/10B.
As producer, Tova Laiter has recently set up a film at WB with director Todd Philip, (The Hangover) with Eminem attached to star. She also sold a reality pilot to BRAVO, based on the non-fiction book STEPWIVES. This follows the very successful Paramount/MTV football comedy Varsity Blues with Jon Voight, James Van Der Beek, Paul Walker, Ali Larter and Scott Caan, and Elvis Has Left the Building with Kim Basinger and John Corbett for Lionsgate. Laiter was responsible for another successful football movie, Friday Night Lights, based on a Pulitzer prize winning book which she brought as an executive to Imagine Entertainment.
Laiter moved to Los Angeles in 1972 to embark on a Film career after producing commercials for N. Lee Lacy for 2 years in NYC. She took film production courses at New York University following her BA in Art History and Philosophy from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Hollywood
Laiter introduction to Hollywood was on the set of The Godfather Part II, getting first hand experience working with Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and James Caan. Her follow up movie was The Parallax View with Alan Pakula directing and Warren Beatty starring. Shortly after, she jumped to an executive position, becoming West Coast editor for Dell/Dial/Delacorte publishing empire, securing book rights and novelization tie-in rights to movie scripts including Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg.
The success of the movie tie-in led to Laiter moving to WB. as head of story depart supervising a staff of 37 employees. From there, she became co-president of Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard’s and Brian Grazer’s company, where she worked on the development and production of movies such as: Far and Away with Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman; Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger & director Ivan Reitman; Friday Night Lights with Billy Bob Thornton and director Peter Berg; Lorenzo's Oil with Susan Sarandon & Nick Nolte and director George Miller; HouseSitter with Goldie Hawn & Steve Martin and director Frank Oz; My Girl with Macaulay Culkin & Anna Chlumsky and director Howard Zieff; CB4 with Chris Rock & director Tamra Davis; and Cop and a Half with Burt Reynolds and director Henry Winkler.
Next came President of Production at Cinergi, where Laiter presided over the development and production a slate of high profile event movies, including: Evita with Madonna & Antonio Banderas and director Alan Parker; Nixon with Anthony Hopkins and director Oliver Stone; Die Hard III with Bruce Willis & Samuel L. Jackson and director John McTiernan; Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone and director Danny Cannon; and The Scarlet Letter with Demi Moore & Gary Oldman and director Roland Joffé.
Laiter is now full-time producer at her Avida Entertainment production company where she is developing several projects both for studios and independent. Currently shooting Compulsion in Toronto on which she is executive producer.
Laiter has recently started a series screening and Q+A of 70’s classic movies for New York Film Academy- LA Branch. The screening and Q+A have been widely popular and enticed talent such as Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, William Friedkin, Robert Towne, Richard Dreyfuss, etc.
She also brings top executives to lectures such as Universal‘s Ron Meyer, WB's Alan Horn, Nu Image’s Avi Lerner, New Line Cinema founder Bob Shaye, Mark Canton, etc.
Another producing effort was the Al Franken-Tom Davis comedy One More Saturday Night.
Hobbies and Interests
Laiter has won numerous 1st place ribbons for ‘Best Speeches’ at her Toastmaster club. She travels extensively around the globe exploring different cultures, world-class monuments, antiquities and museums.

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