The October MIPCOM Cannes Issue of VideoAge returned with another edition of “Hall of Fame,” a feature that began in 2015, and was most recently seen in March 2022, after honoring the professional lives of 34 international film and TV executives from all over the world.
This time it’s all about Leonard (Len) J. Grossi, a true Hollywood insider who experienced all of TV’s many changes over the years while working under the same bosses (albeit at different companies), and who managed to hold on to his sense of humor.
Throughout his lengthy career, he worked at three of the six major Hollywood studios. He started at Paramount, moved on to 20th Century Fox, returned to Paramount, and then finally went to Columbia Tri Star TV. The corporate world was more dynamic during those years, and executives rotated around more often. Some of the legendary U.S. studio executives that Grossi routinely found in his path included Barry Diller, Jonathan Dolgen, Jim Gianopoulos, Mel Harris, and Lucie Salhany.
Grossi can also claim to have gone through every phase of the TV era, starting with U.S. syndication, then moving on to international TV growth, cable TV, the mergers and acquisitions craze of the 1980s and 1990s, home video, the HBO wake-up call, Spanish-language TV rising to prominence in the U.S., and the digital transition. He left the business in 2002 just before the evolution of streaming. In the midst of all that, Grossi went through what author John Malone, in his book, Born to be Wired, called, “the massive technology shift in the early ’90s.”
Don’t miss it. It has been available in print since October 10, but it had been online a week earlier at https://www.videoageinternational.net/2025/10/06/hall-of-fame/len-grossi-hollywood-insider-on-going-through-tv-eras-seamlessly/
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