Jonathan T. Taplin

Jonathan Trumbull Taplin (born July 18, 1947) is an American writer, film producer and scholar. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and has lived in Los Angeles since 1973. Taplin graduated from Princeton University in 1969 and is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Taplin is Chairman of the Board of the Americana Music Foundation.

Taplin's early production work included producing concerts for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973, he produced Martin Scorsese's first major feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for the Public Broadcasting Service) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until the End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards and chosen for the Cannes Film Festival six times.