George Bloom, a former marketing executive at Fox and Disney who spent the past 22 years as a producer and visual effects leader at CBS, has died. He was 68.
Bloom suffered a heart attack and died Tuesday at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, California, Craig Weiss, his longtime colleague at CBS, announced.
He and his family lost their home in the Pacific Palisades fires, and he spent his last year dealing with that.
In 2017, Bloom received an Emmy nomination for outstanding creative achievement in interactive media within a scripted program (shared with Weiss and Jim Berndt) for the video game Stranger Things VR.
His father was veteran comedy writer George Bloom Sr., whose credits included Dean Martin’s variety show and his celebrity roasts, The Hollywood Palace, The Julie Andrews Hour, Chico and the Man, Welcome Back, Kotter and several animated shows.
Born on Dec. 22, 1956, in Evanston, Illinois, George Jay Bloom ||| graduated from La Cañada High School and studied photography at Pepperdine University and Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. He started his career in 1985 at the newly formed video division at Capitol Records, where he was involved in making music videos for such bands as Duran Duran and The Cars.
In 1992, he founded Vision Mixer Films, which for a decade handled hundreds of campaigns and promotions for TV networks, including the annual Monday Night Football intros that featured Hank Williams Jr.
Bloom worked at Fox as a vice president from 2005-06 before spending nearly five years at Disney, for whom he wrote, produced and supervised original content for campaigns for movies including Toy Story 3, WALL-E, Tron, Alice in Wonderland, two Pirates of the Caribbean films and The Avengers.
He joined CBS in March 2013 and led business development and assisted with the implementation of a proprietary visual production platform called Parallax, with clients including Amazon, Marvel and Netflix. He also was involved with content, social media and immersive live entertainment.
In 2005, he sold a sci-fi screenplay to Miramax and more recently was a public speaker.
“George was a true renaissance man, teaching himself high-level astronomy, stock market trading, writing a novel and delving into artificial intelligence,” Weiss said. “He was also a keen sportsman, enjoying surfing, tennis and kiteboarding.”
Survivors include his wife, Jennifer; his children, Oliver and Carly; and his mother and three sisters. A celebration of his life is being planned.