Longtime industry executive Geoff Ammer dies at 62

Noted film industry executive Geoff Ammer died Sunday morning after suffering a heart attack. He was 62.

Ammer had an extensive resume that included a brief stint as the worldwide president of marketing for Relativity Media, as well as a similar title at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he worked on hit films such as “Spider-Man,” “Spider-Man 2” and “Panic Room.”

Ammer also worked at Walt Disney Co. and 20th Century Fox. For the last year Ammer headed his own Clarius Entertainment, a marketing and distribution firm. The Beverly Hills company had numerous projects in the early stages, but had not yet financed and released a film.

“He started it from scratch and he stayed with it,” said Tom Sherak, friend, former 20th Century Fox colleague and former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “It was just getting started. He worked so hard on it. A lot of people thought he should move on, but he was determined to make it work and he had finally made it work and then he passed away.”

Ammer’s passing was a shock, said Sherak, who remembered his former associate’s kindness. In 1988, when Ammer was in Florida for a media junket, he went to Miami to bring Sherak’s ill mother to Los Angles.

“She had lymphoma and she could hardly walk,” Sherak said. “She wanted to come out here, and Geoff went to Miami, picked her up, wheeled her on a plane and brought her home to me. She died here. That was Geoff. He didn’t do that because he worked for me, believe me. He was my friend.”

Ammer is survived by his wife, Mia, and his two children.

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