MUMBAI: Andy Albeck, who as head of United Artists (UA) acquired Raging Bull and Heaven‘s Gate died of heart failure on 29 September four days after he celebrated his 89th birthday.

Spending more than 30 years at UA, Albeck worked with such renowned filmmakers as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

After stints as president of UA broadcasting and senior vp operations, he was named studio president and CEO in 1978 after the previous studio leadership left and formed Orion Pictures. His three-year stint at the top was well-documented in former UA executive Steven Bach‘s best-selling book Final Cut that focused on the making of the Michael Cimino‘s Heaven‘s Gate.

Born in Russia and raised and schooled in Japan, Albeck began his career in the film industry in 1939 as a sales representative for Columbia Pictures in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). In 1950, he joined Eagle Lion in New York as its assistant foreign sales manager, and a year later Eagle Lion was acquired by UA.