Bethlyn Hand, Former Motion Picture Association Exec, Dies at 85
variety.comJ. Kim Murphy Bethlyn Hand, who served as senior vice president of advertising and administration for the Motion Picture Association of America, died Feb.
14 of Alzheimer’s disease. She was 85 years old. Hand joined the Hollywood trade organization shortly after Jack Valenti began his 37-year tenure as MPA president in 1966. “She was by my side at the very beginning of my tenure at the MPAA,” Valenti said in 2003, four years before his death in 2007. “I got a lot of credit for what she did.” Working with the MPAA, Hand’s responsibilities included the approval of marketing campaigns aligning with the guidelines of its ratings program — a duty that often spurred studio executives and producers to meet with her to plead their cases.
In the ’90s, Hand was named one of Hollywood’s most powerful women by the Hollywood Reporter. “With the teenage movies, there’s always a lot more sex that marketers want in the advertising than we will agree to.
With a trailer, you’re a captive audience,” Hand once remarked about her responsibilities. Hand was born Jan. 30, 1938. She was raised in Houston, Texas before studying journalism at the University of Texas.
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