The legendary, respected, always colorful Jerry Weintraub has passed at age 77. Music industry manager (Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, John Denver, Neil Diamond, Led Zepplin), film producer (Weintraub Entertainment Group), chairman and CEO of United Artists. He knew everybody, got around, saw everything, knew all the stories — a real 20th Century showbiz guy. Part of Weintraub’s panache is that he always sounded like he was vaguely mobbed up on some level, or that he knew guys who knew guys who knew guys. He wasn’t just a Jew who was born in Brooklyn and raised in The Bronx — in a highly flavorable way he really sounded like it. (One result was that director Sydney Pollack hired him to play a gangster in The Firm.) I never spoke to Weintraub much (parties, press conferences), but I loved his smooth old-school swagger. A smart, shrewd, aggressive dude. Did well for himself, made money for others, played the game with consummate skill. Douglas McGrath‘s My Way (2011) is streaming as we speak on HBO