Irena and Mike Medavoy: 2011 Humanitarian Torch of Learning Award Recipients

Irena and Mike Medavoy: 2011 Humanitarian Torch of Learning Award Recipients

Irena and Mike Medavoy are icons of the film and entertainment industry. Individually and collectively, the Los Angeles couple has launched scores of critically acclaimed screen and television productions over the course of their distinguished careers and has cultivated partnerships with Hollywood’s elite. Married since 1995, Irena and Mike share an international upbringing and are deeply committed to philanthropic and humanitarian causes, many of which benefit children, Israel and the global Jewish community. Active in politics, Mike Medavoy participated in President Clinton’s campaigns in 1992 and 1996.  In 2008, he supported the candidacy of Barack Obama. Irena Medavoy was Obama’s Co-Finance Chair.

Irina Medavoy is a first generation American born to educated Russian immigrants and survivors of the Holocaust who instilled in her a sense of social awareness and change. In Los Angeles, her father was an architect at Disney and her mother was head surgical nurse at UCLA’s Jules Stein Institute.  Irina’s distinguished career began after high school when she became the assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of The Hollywood Reporter.  A graduate of USC’s cinema school, Irina became Vice President of Publicity and Public Relations for Sunn Classic Pictures. She launched Phoenix Enterprises, the first all female direct response television company, where she invented, manufactured, and produced original products for home-shopping mainstay QVC, established lucrative projects with King World and American Telecast Productions, and produced highly successful infomercials with A-list celebrities.

Motivated by the birth of son Nick and her upbringing, Irina turned her attention to children’s philanthropy. She became Executive Vice Chair of Cedars-Sinai Hospital’s C.O.A.C.H. program, a clinic on wheels that provides free primary health care services for low-income children and their families.  Irina also founded Team Safe-T, an emergency preparedness program for California’s public school system, and has generously supported the Margaret Gerasimenko Fund for Cancer Research at the Jonsson Cancer Research Center at UCLA in honor of her mother and brother who died of the disease. She is also actively involved with the Love and Arts Children Foundation, which offers children in need an artistic means of expression, empowerment and hope.  

Film producer Mike Medavoy was born in China and lived with his parents in Chile for ten years before moving to Los Angeles.  A graduate of UCLA with a degree in history, Mike began his award-wining career at Universal Studios in 1964, rising quickly to casting director. After ten years as a casting agent with General Artist Corporation, Mike became Vice President at Creative Management Agency and then Vice President in charge of the motion picture department with International Famous Agency. As Senior Vice President in charge of production at United Artists Mike was part of the team responsible for iconic Oscar-winning films, among them, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Annie Hall.

As a co-founder of Orion Pictures and Chairman of TriStar Pictures, Mike Medavoy oversaw critically acclaimed box office hits. As the current chairman of Phoenix Pictures, he has brought to many films to the screen including The Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumna and 2011Oscar-winner for Best Actress. His myriad honors include Lifetime Achievement Awards at the Cannes and Israel Film Festivals and from The Jerusalem Film Foundation; the UCLA Neil H Jacoby Awards for exceptional contributions to humanity; The Anti-Defamation League’s inaugural Fred Zinnemann Award and a star on Hollywood Boulevard.  Mike has authored two books and is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations and the Homeland Security Advisory Council.