Glenn Padnick Dies: Castle Rock Co-Founder & TV Chief Who Helped Shepherd ‘Seinfeld’ Was 77

deadline.com:

Glenn Padnick, who co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment, served as its TV president and was a key player in bringing its crown-jewel sitcom Seinfeld into existence, has died.

He was 77. His reps told Deadline that Padnick died February 25 of complications from Erdheim-Chester disease, a rare illness he lived with for a quarter-century.

Padnick shepherded the Jerry Seinfeld-fronted comedy juggernaut into being and produced and oversaw the NBC series through all nine seasons, making an uncredited on-screen cameo in the Season 4 episode “The Pilot.” Alan Horn, who co-founded Castle Rock in 1987 along with Padnick, Rob Reiner, Martin Shafer and Andrew Scheinman, said of Padnick: “We found ourselves having a phenomenal run with what is unquestionably one of the most famous situation comedies in television, Seinfeld.

And he was the point person as president of Castle Rock Television.” During his career as a TV executive, Padnick also produced several hit comedies of the 1980s and ’90s including NBC’s Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life, ABC’s Who’s the Boss?