‘Ocean’s Eleven’ producer Weintraub dies

Legendary producer Jerry Weintraub, best known for “The Karate Kid,” “Nashville” and the “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise, died Monday at 77.

The three-time Emmy winner’s most recent project was executive-producing the HBO political comedy “The Brink.”

Weintraub first made his name as a music promoter, booking marquee names that included a pair of Las Vegas legends: Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

But Las Vegas also played a major role in Weintraub’s Hollywood career, serving as a location for productions as diverse as 1997’s “Vegas Vacation” and 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven” remake. (He made cameo appearances in both.)

“Ocean’s Twelve” (released in 2004) took place primarily in Europe; by the time “Ocean’s Thirteen” (2007) was ready to revisit Las Vegas, however, the cast and crew spent less time in Las Vegas and far more on a palatial casino set built on a Warner Bros. soundstage.

“It was beautiful,” Weintraub said of “Thirteen’s” casino set during a visit to the annual movie convention then known as ShoWest. (It’s now called CinemaCon.) “We hated to take it down.”

But the paparazzi-magnet appeal of the movie’s all-star cast — led by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino and Matt Damon — “made it difficult to shoot here” in Las Vegas, Weintraub explained. (Not only in Las Vegas, he added, but “in Pittsburgh.”)

Weintraub also visited ShoWest in 2010 to promote the remake (starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan) of his 1984 sleeper hit “The Karate Kid,” which co-starred late Las Vegan Noriyuki “Pat” Morita.

The producer’s final Vegas-related credit: HBO’s 2013 Liberace drama “Behind the Candelabra,” which starred Michael Douglas as the legendary Vegas headliner and “Ocean’s” alumnus Damon as Liberace’s much younger lover, Scott Thorson. Douglas, director Steven Soderbergh (who also directed the “Ocean’s” trilogy) and Weintraub all won Emmy Awards.