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Thomas Henderson Mount is the former President of Universal Pictures and one of America's well-known independent producers.
In the course of his forty-year career as film producer, entrepreneur, and studio head, Thom Mount has made an indelible mark on the American film industry. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he studied art at Bard College where he received a BA, and served on Bard's Board of Trustees for many years. He received an MFA in Film and Video at the California Institute of the Arts. After "start up" jobs working for Roger Corman, Jane Fonda, and Daniel Selznick, Mount started as an assistant at Universal Pictures in late 1972. He developed and supervised "youth unit" and low-budget comedies there and was appointed head of Universal Studios at the age of 26,.
MCA/Universal Chairman Lew Wasserman was a mentor to Mount, placing him on the executive fast track and charging him with managing studio relationships including Alfred Hitchcock, Dino DeLaurentis, Edith Head, George Roy Hill, and Paul Newman. He was responsible for much of the studio's success in the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s with almost 200 films under his supervision. They included Back to the Future, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Blues Brothers, Car Wash, Coal Miner's Daughter, Conan the Barbarian, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Missing, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, National Lampoon's Animal House, On Golden Pond, Repo Man, Scarface, Smokey and the Bandit, The Breakfast Club, The Deer Hunter, and The Jerk.
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