{"id":1673,"date":"2026-05-15T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/15\/tony-seiniger-poster-designer-and-godfather-of-movie-advertising-dies-at-87\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T19:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:05:00","slug":"tony-seiniger-poster-designer-and-godfather-of-movie-advertising-dies-at-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/15\/tony-seiniger-poster-designer-and-godfather-of-movie-advertising-dies-at-87\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Seiniger, Poster Designer and \u201cGodfather of Movie Advertising,\u201d Dies at 87"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tTony Seiniger, the poster designer who also oversaw marketing campaigns for such classic movies as Jaws<\/a><\/em>, Poltergeist<\/em>, Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off<\/em> and Total Recall<\/em>, died Monday in Atlanta, his family announced. He was 87.<\/p>\n

\tKnown as the \u201cGodfather of Movie Advertising,\u201d Seiniger took unknown illustrator Drew Struzan<\/a> under his wing and gave him his start as a poster designer in Hollywood. Struzan would become a show business legend. <\/p>\n

\tThe New Yorker was involved with more than 2,500 major motion picture campaigns during his career, and in 1998, he became only the seventh person to receive the lifetime achievement award from THR<\/em>\u2019s Key Art Awards. \t<\/p>\n

\tAfter launching Seiniger Advertising in Los Angeles in 1970, Seiniger designed the poster for One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em> (1975), and that led to the job that brought his company lots of attention \u2014 the iconic poster for Steven Spielberg\u2019s Jaws<\/em> (1975). It employed Roger Kastel<\/a>\u2019s painting of a shark and a swimmer that also was the cover of Peter Benchley\u2019s paperback Jaws<\/em> novel.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tThe \u2018Jaws\u2019 poster.<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLMPC via Getty Images<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tAs the creative director of Seiniger Advertising over the next three decades, he worked on campaigns for The Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em> (1975), Eyes of Laura Mars<\/em> (1978), Poltergeist<\/em> (1982), Risky Business<\/em> (1983) \u2014 Struzan designed the poster for that \u2014 Teachers<\/em> (1984), The Breakfast Club<\/em> (1985), Moonstruck<\/em> (1987), Bull Durham<\/em> (1988), Field of Dreams<\/em> (1989), Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off<\/em> (1986), Planes, Trains and Automobiles<\/em> (1987), The Last Emperor<\/em> (1987), The Firm<\/em> (1988), Total Recall<\/em> (1990), Hook<\/em> (1991) and many, many others. \t<\/p>\n

\tAsked what make a poster great by NPR in 2003, he replied<\/a>: \u201cFirst off, it should be different. It should be something nobody has seen before \u2014 that\u2019ll get it attention. You have to be able to read it at about 35 or 40 miles per hour and digest it in three seconds \u2026 That\u2019s the challenge, to try get an hour-and-a-half or two hours of entertainment down into a simple graphic that you can read in three seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tOne of three kids, Seiniger was born in 1939 to Charles and Pretoria \u201cTorre\u201d Seiniger and raised in Manhattan. He attended boarding school in Kent, Connecticut, followed by two years at Kenyon College in Ohio and 3 1\/2 years at the Rhode Island School of Design.<\/p>\n

\tHe got his start in the ad world at EUE\/Screen Gems in New York, where he produced and directed a series of TV spots for The Professionals<\/em> (1966), a Western from parent company Columbia Pictures. The campaign launched his career in movie marketing, and he created posters for such films as Shaft<\/em> (1971) and Mean Streets<\/em> (1973).<\/p>\n

\tHe designed the poster for One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em> (1975), and that led to the job that brought his company fame \u2014 the poster for Jaws<\/em> (1975).<\/p>\n

\tSeiniger will be \u201cremembered by those who knew him for his enormous personality and memorable laugh, his grand love of food and wine, his all-encompassing knowledge of Broadway musicals and the true devotion he brought to all of his many friendships,\u201d his family noted. He also participated in amateur Formula 1 races in his spare time. \t<\/p>\n

\tSurvivors include his daughters, Jillian, Heather, Sara and Tamar; his grandchildren, Dylan, Rose, Alex, Georgia and Josephine; and his longtime partner, Wriston.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Seiniger, the poster designer who also oversaw marketing campaigns for such classic movies as Jaws, Poltergeist, Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off and Total Recall, died Monday in Atlanta, his family announced. He was 87. Known as the \u201cGodfather of Movie Advertising,\u201d Seiniger took unknown illustrator Drew Struzan under his wing and gave him his start as a poster designer in Hollywood. Struzan would become a show business legend. The New Yorker was involved with more than 2,500 major motion picture campaigns during his career, and in 1998, he became only the seventh person to receive the lifetime achievement award from THR\u2019s Key Art Awards. After launching Seiniger Advertising in Los […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,363,27,60,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","category-jaws","category-movie-news","category-movies","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}