Fred Weintraub

Fred Robert Weintraub (April 27, 1928 – March 5, 2017) was an American film and television producer and writer.

Weintraub was the original owner and host of The Bitter End in New York City's Greenwich Village. Weintraub discovered singers and stand-up comedians such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Lenny Bruce (with whom he was arrested for obscenity), Randy Newman and The Isley Brothers. The club also featured early performances of Neil Diamond, Woody Allen, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Ricky Nelson, Nina Simone, Dustin Hoffman, Charles Aznavour, Lily Tomlin, Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, George Carlin, Bob Dylan, Harry Chapin, Bill Cosby and Phil Ochs. During the early 1960s, The Bitter End hosted "Open Mike" Hootenannies every Tuesday night, showcasing young, old, known and unknown folk singers.

Weintraub is not related to fellow film producer Jerry Weintraub.

Moving west in the mid-1960s, Weintraub created, wrote, and produced several television shows including Hootenanny and Dukes of Hazzard. Beginning with Rage, then Enter the Dragon, Weintraub produced dozens of movies, many with a martial arts theme (like China O'Brien with Cynthia Rothrock, for example), as well as directing a documentary on Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee: The Curse of the Dragon (1993).

In 1970, Weintraub became an Executive Vice President of Warner Bros. One of the first films he oversaw for the studio was Woodstock. In 1972, he became an independent producer and made a number of adventure films, including Enter the Dragon, starring Bruce Lee.

One of Weintraub's documentary films was It's Showtime (1976), which consisted of film clips profiling various animal actors, such as Rin Tin Tin, Flipper, Trigger, and Asta, with commentary from the actors who worked with them, and including footage of James Cagney, Jimmy Durante, Cary Grant, Maureen O'Sullivan, Dick Powell, Ronald Reagan, and Mickey Rooney working with animal stars.

In 1978, Weintraub and Gordon McLendon worked on an idea for a TV series about the CIA. They were disillusioned with the negative portrayal of the agency, such as in the film Three Days of the Condor. As a result, McLendon and CIA veteran David Atlee Phillips approached CIA Director Stansfield Turner in March 1978 about the idea, although nothing came of the proposal.

In 2011, Weintraub published his memoir, Bruce Lee, Woodstock and Me, along with collaborator David Fields, recalling his fifty-year career in the entertainment industry.

Weintraub died on March 5, 2017, in his Pacific Palisades home due to natural causes related to Parkinson's disease. He was 88.

He is survived by his wife Jackie; children Sandra, Barbara, Max, and Zachary; and four grandchildren.