George Shapiro

George Shapiro was an American talent manager and television producer.

Shapiro and his business partner Howard West helped to bring the iconic sitcom Seinfeld to television. More recently, they were involved with Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Shapiro and West also helped guide the careers of Carl Reiner, Andy Kaufman, Peter Bonerz, Marty Feldman, Gabe Kaplan, Robert Wuhl, Bill Persky & Sam Denoff, Austin & Irma Kalish, Dick Clair & Jenna McMahon, Sam Bobrick, and Norman Barasch.

Shapiro put together talent for such TV programs as The Steve Allen Show, That Girl, and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and for specials headlined by Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing.

Shapiro was comedian Andy Kaufman's personal manager for many years, and he negotiated the contract that brought the comedian to ABC's Taxi. He also executive produced Andy's Funhouse special for ABC in 1979 and the Andy Kaufman at Carnegie Hall special for Showtime in 1980.

Shapiro produced other TV specials headlined by Seinfeld and Elayne Boosler and an animated version of Reiner and Mel Brooks' classic 2000-Year-Old Man routine.

Shapiro and West executive produced the Milos Forman-directed Man on the Moon (1999), starring Jim Carrey as Kaufman. (While Taxi star Danny DeVito played him in the movie, Shapiro appeared as a club owner who fired Kaufman early in his career, and West portrayed a network executive.)

Other features produced by Shapiro included Summer Rental (1985), starring John Candy and Rip Torn, and Summer School (1987), featuring Mark Harmon and Kirstie Alley.

He also produced documentaries like Comedian (2001), which chronicled Seinfeld's return to the stand-up stage; The Bronx Boys (2003); The Bronx Boys Still Playing at 80 (2013); If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast (2017), hosted by Reiner; and The Super Bob Einstein Movie (2021)

Shapiro was a founding advisory board member of the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.

Shapiro died May 26, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. He was 91.