The New York Times reports that Frank Rosenfelt of MGM died last week at age 85. Far from a household name, but check out the movies he was associated with in just these few paragraphs of his obit:

He made it clear that a large part of his approach was to make compelling entertainment for theaters, television and video recordings. The hundreds of pictures he oversaw included masterpieces like “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) by the director Stanley Kubrick.

“I don’t own a screwdriver,” he said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1982. “I don’t even know how my television set works. All I know is they need programming and I have the programming. All I care about is that it’s my product and I get paid for it.”

One of his triumphs was acquiring the movie rights to “Doctor Zhivago,” (1965) by the Russian writer Boris Pasternak, from the producer Carlo Ponti, who had owned the rights. Variety reported that Mr. Rosenfelt had investigated whether writers in the Soviet Union had the right to sell their own properties by tracking down a scholar of Russian law. He found that the authors retained property rights. He then had top Russian literary scholars help provide a translation that would satisfy the terms of the agreement.

One of his biggest disappointments was when MGM’s movie “Network” (1976) — which contained the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” — lost the Academy Award for best picture to “Rocky,” The Associated Press reported. It said he banned the mention of the winning movie’s name in his home.