Pittsburgh: Hollywood’s Best Kept Secret

The Post-Gazette calls the first Pittsburgh Entertainment Summit, “the greatest assemblage of talent and hustle this town has ever seen.” The Summit becomes a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Nominated TV special produced with WQED, and also unveils the short film Pittsburgh: Hollywood’s Best Kept Secret in which Chicago director Rob Marshall, Oscar winner Shirley Jones, 300 producer Bernie Goldmann, Jim Carrey manager Eric Gold,Two and a Half Men director Jamie Widdoes, and many Pittsburgh expatriates talk about how their hometown nurtured them as artists and the potential of Pittsburgh to become a world class player in the entertainment industry. 

The First Pittsburgh Entertainment Summit

Steeltown Entertainment Project is co-founded by Ellen Weiss Kander, Maxine Lapiduss, and Carl Kurlander, top Hollywood expatriates, and civic leaders with the vision that the Pittsburgh region has what it takes to become a world-class player in the entertainment industry. Inspired by Carl’s op-ed piece,  Steeltown hosted the Pittsburgh Entertainment Summit at WQED, the nation’s first community public television station, on the soundstage where Fred Rogers filmed his shows. There, over a dozen of Pittsburgh’s top entertainment luminaries including Steeltown advisers “300” producer Bernie Goldmann, “Chicago” director Rob Marshall, Jim Carrey/Vince Vaughn/Ellen DeGeneres manager Eric Gold, “Lizzie McGuire” creator Terri Minsky, “Two and a Half Men” director Jamie Widdoes, “Ice Age” writer Peter Ackerman, director George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) returned to talk about their roots and discuss ways to help their hometown become more of a player in the entertainment industry.

Pittsburgh’s Next Industrial Revolution: Entertainment

Steeltown’s president & CEO, Carl Kurlander, pens an op-ed piece for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that poses the question: What product does Pittsburgh export that generates billions of dollars of revenue? The answer: entertainment. We regard this op-ed as the piece that started Steeltown.

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