Bethlyn Hand, Former Motion Picture Association Exec, Dies at 85
J. 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.