Jack Valenti, the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America who is best remembered as the man who created the film ratings system, and who for years addressed an international television audience while introducing the Academy Awards ceremony, died in his Washington D.C. home on April 26 from complications from a stroke he suffered in March.

Valenti was born on September 5, 1921 in Houston, Texas. He was an honor student at Sam Houston High School, where he graduated in 1937. He attended the University of Houston until 1942 when he enlisted in the Army Air Forces and after the war, he returned to academics and eventually received an MBA from Harvard University in 1948.

Back in Houston, Valenti ran an advertising firm and was considered a very bright businessman who crossed paths with many of the Houston elite. It was on one such occassion that he met the formidable Lyndon B. Johnson when he was invited to a local reception to meet him when he was then the U.S. Senate's majority leader. When Johnson was selected as John F. Kennedy's running mate in 1960, Valenti worked on their campaign in Texas and his loyalty and hard work was not forgotten by LBJ. After Kennedy's assisination in 1963, Valenti became an indispensable confidant to Johnson, and relocated to Washington D.C.

In 1966, two Hollywood moguls, Lew Wasserman of MCA and Arthur Krim of United Artistsapproached Valenti to lead their trade group, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). With a staggering annual salary of $175,000, he wisely left Washington for Hollywood. From the onset, Valenti realized that the "Hayes Code," a self-regulating censorship watchdog established in 1934, was seriously outdated when it came to contemporary movies where frank language, gritty realism and open sexuality held a much more confrontational tone than they had in the past. Films such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Blow Up, In Cold Blood, and I'll Never Forget What's His Name were all examples of what was pushing the boundaries in film censorship. As such, Valenti scrapped away the Hayes Code and on Novemebr 1, 1968, the MPAA ratings system was born.

That system, which originally consisted of G (General Audiences), M (Suggested for Mature Audiences), R (Restricted), and X (self-explanatory) has obviously changed over the years, yet we can't underestimate how much it opened Hollywood up to a whole new phase of filmmaking and subject matter. Over the years, with home video issues, complaints of violence in cinema, advanced technologies, and other evolving processes with the film industry, Valenti was the man who took it all in stride and was the distinguished face of the MPAA. In 2004, after 38 years at the helm, he retired. His biography, titled This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood, is scheduled for release this summer. He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Mary; son, John; daughters, Courtenay and Alexandra; sister, Lorraine Valenti Dinerstein; and two grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole