Veteran publicist Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first African American to serve as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, followed the path of her pioneering sibling as a top-tier executive in the Hollywood motion picture industry. Ashley A. Boone Jr. (1939-1994),her brother, had been the most distinguished African American working at several studios, capping his career in 1979 as president for distribution and marketing at 20th Century Fox.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts into a middle class family of four children, Isaacs’ parents stressed academic achievement. Her youthful ambition tobecome a musical comedy star was discouraged. She graduated from Classical High School in 1967 then moved to California and earned her political science degree in 1971 at Whittier College.

Isaacs entered the film industry in 1977 as a staff publicist at Columbia Pictures working on the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the 1980s she promoted movies at Melvin Simon Productions directing campaigns for My Bodyguard, The Stuntman, and Love at First Sight; The Ladd Company where she worked on The Right Stuff, Once Upon a Time in America, and Police Academy;and Paramount Pictures where she rose to executive vice president for worldwide publicity. At Paramount in the 1990s she promoted Ghost, Forrest Gump, and Braveheart, among others.

Isaacsjoined New Line Cinema in 1997 as president of theatrical marketing, thus becoming the first black woman to head a major studio’s marketing operation, encompassing media buying, publicity, advertising, market research, and product placement. Projects at New Line included Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Rush Hour. Leaving New Line in 1999, she shifted to consulting via her strategic marketing firm CBI Enterprises Inc., working on critically-acclaimed films and box office hits like Spiderman 2, The Artist, Precious, The King’s Speech, and the documentary Tupac: Resurrection.

Isaacslent her talents to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

3396 Black Facts for July