Elayne Blythe
Founder
Film Advisory Board
 

Elayne Blythe, founder and president of the Film Advisory Board, died Jan. 28 in Los Angeles of natural causes. She was 85.

Blythe formed the Film Advisory Board in 1975 to promote quality entertainment for children and families, working with grassroots organizations to promote the FAB's goals.

Her FAB rating system was used by some video and TV producers to provide content ratings in addition to or instead of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings.

She also produced celebrity tributes, including those for Ted Turner, Mickey Rooney and Liza Minnelli, and wrote film reviews. The Film Advisory Board's Award of Excellence seal has appeared on many family film

  Elayne Blytheawarding David Huddleston
the Film Advisory Board Honor Plaque.

From left: David Huddleston, Elayne Blythe, Eve (Brent) Ashe, Mike Ashe, Unknown, Socrates Ballis

Photo by Sam Younghans

Elayne Blythe was a wonderful woman. She was many things and had done many things. Anyone who could claim half as much of the things she has done would be a very busy person. I knew her from the early seventies. We became good friends. I I helped her with her struggle to keep the film advisory board active. Jack Valenti was always trying to discredit her because of her pursuit for family films, it caused Valenti more work, and he only had that position because of certain reasons and could really care less about the ratings or the people. His influence was enough to keep her from gaining her goal of making it an official rating organization, but it didn't stop her. she made it work. We did presentation dinners, went to previews of films, talked to all of the people in the industry. She made it happen.