Ivan Reitman, Hollywood producer and director of such comedic blockbusters as Ghostbusters, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Meatballs, and Kindergarten Cop, died this weekend in Montecito. He was 75.
Reitman and his family moved to Montecito in the mid-1990s, buying a portion of an estate once owned by heirs of the Armour meatpacking company. He and his wife contributed generously to Cottage Hospital and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, among other nonprofits. Reitman also collaborated with Tom Pollock to create the Montecito Picture Company.
Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia to Jewish parents who managed to survive the Nazi occupation during World War II and who fled to Canada in 1946 to escape communism.
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