Jack Valenti, a colorful former White House aide who became Hollywood's top lobbyist in Washington for four decades and created the modern movie rating system, died Thursday.
Valenti, who was 85, had left Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University Medical Center on Tuesday after being treated for a stroke suffered in March. He died of complications from the stroke at his Washington, D.C., home, said Seth Oster of the Motion Picture Association of America.
Dan Glickman, a former congressman from Kansas who succeeded Valenti as head of the MPAA after his retirement in 2004, called Valenti "a giant who loomed large over two of the world's most glittering stages: Washington and Hollywood."
President Bush said Valenti "helped transform the motion picture industry. He leaves a powerful legacy in Washington, in Hollywood, and across our nation."
Valenti was a special assistant and close aide to President Lyndon Johnson when he was hired to head the movie industry association in 1966.
Valenti had been a political consultant working in Texas for Johnson, then the vice president, and was in Dallas when President Kennedy was assassinated there.
"Everyone who was at least 6 years old on Nov. 22, 1963, can tell you with precision where he or she was when the news was announced," Valenti wrote in a USA TODAY column in 2004. "I certainly remember where I was that day: in the Dallas motorcade, six cars back from President Kennedy."
Johnson, who was sworn in as president that day, immediately made Valenti his special assistant, a job that allowed him to develop strong influence over the administration's relations with Congress and diplomacy and the president's speeches.
When Valenti left the White House for the movie industry job, he became one of the highest-paid figures in Washington, earning $1 million a year. His white mane of hair and dapper attire were a familiar site at political and social events in the city.
Valenti's introduction of a national movie ratings system in 1968 — G, PG, R and X — helped stave off calls for government censorship while allowing filmmakers and studios freedom to embrace complex and mature themes.
PG-13 was added in the mid-1980s in response to gruesome elements of otherwise kid-friendly movies such as "Gremlins" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." X, which had largely become linked to hard-core pornographic films, became NC-17 (no one under 17 admitted) in the 1990s.
The idea for the PG-13 rating was proposed by director Steven Spielberg, but it was Valenti who made it work. He took the idea to the National Association of Theater Owners, the Hollywood guilds, studios and filmmakers and religious groups, using his famed charm and logic to unite the disparate groups.
Before he announced his retirement from the MPAA in 2004, Valenti also took on the issue of digital movie piracy, helping push it to the forefront of national debate at a time when the ability to transfer huge video files was still new. He defended the movie industry against complaints of too much violence after the 1999 Columbine school shootings.
With his sharp smile and Texas accent, Valenti was a frequent guest on TV news channels to discuss the nexus of entertainment and politics. He was a bomber pilot in World War II, and received his master's degree in business from Harvard.
His autobiography, "This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood," is due in October.