Glenn Padnick has died at age 77. According to Deadline, Padnick co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment and served as the TV president and played a pivotal role in the creation of the iconic sitcom Seinfeld.
Deadline reported that Padnick passed away on Feb. 25 due to complications from Erdheim-Chester disease, a rare condition he battled for 25 years.
Padnick was an overseer in the creation and production of Seinfeld, a sitcom whose fans spanned generations. Padnick helped manage the show throughout all nine seasons. According to Deadline, Padnick even made a cameo on the show, appearing briefly on screen without credit in the Season 4 episode titled The Pilot.
Deadline reported on his tenured career. During the 1980s and 1990s, Padnick played a significant role in shaping television comedy as a TV executive and producer. He was instrumental in bringing hit sitcoms to the screen, including NBC’s Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life, ABC’s Who’s the Boss?, and Fox’s breakout primetime success, Married… with Children. Earlier in his career, he contributed to NBC’s Silver Spoons, CBS’ Square Pegs, and the final three seasons of Norman Lear’s (All in the Family, Sanford and Son) trailblazing series One Day at a Time and The Jeffersons.
Padnick created Castle Rock entertainment in 1987 with Alan Horn, Rob Reiner, Martin Schafer and Andrew Scheinman. Deadline quoted Horn as saying “We found ourselves having a phenomenal run with what is unquestionably one of the most famous situation comedies in television, Seinfeld. And he was the point person as president of Castle Rock Television.”
According to Deadline, Padnick was born in Brooklyn in 1947, Padnick pursued a legal career, earning a degree from Harvard Law School before relocating to the West Coast in 1974. He joined the entertainment department at O’Melveny and Myers, where he spent his first year primarily handling contracts for Norman Lear’s television productions. His expertise quickly caught the attention of industry executives, and he was soon recruited by Horn to become head of business affairs at Tandem Productions as in-house legal counsel. Padnick accepted the role with the condition that he would eventually have the chance to explore the creative side of television production.In 1977, he transitioned into a full-time television executive role. A decade later, he co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment and served as its president until 2003, when health complications forced him to retire early.
Deadline quotes Padnick’s son Robert (writer for The Office, Big Mouth) as saying “The best part of my career has been meeting people who worked with my dad. They all say he was the nicest guy in television, which is really saying something in this industry.”
Padnick is survived by his wife, Eleanor; his son Robert and daughter-in-law Sarah Wick; his daughter Susan and her husband Chris Cohen; his son Steven and his wife Sara Hames; six grandchildren; and his sisters, Dale Braunschweig and Jill Martin.
In place of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in his memory to the Erdheim-Chester Disease Global Alliance or National Parks Conservation Association.