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Jon Avnet

This son of the founder and chair of the largest distributor of electronic equipment entered show business staging theatrical productions Off-Broadway. He entered the film industry as a reader at United Artists and later participated in the director's program of the American Film Institute after his student film "Confusion's Corner" (featuring a then-unknown Richard Gere) earned him a fellowship. After working as an associate producer, Avnet and family friend Steve Tisch launched Tisch/Avnet Productions in 1977. For seven years, they oversaw a number of successful features (most notably 1983's "Risky Business" which catapulted Tom Cruise to stardom), several issue-oriented TV-movies like "The Burning Bed" (NBC, 1984), starring Farrah Fawcett, and the acclaimed, but short-lived series "Call to Glory" (ABC, 1984-85).