Hollywood producer and talent agent Bernie Brillstein who contributed to the molding of television programs and served as executive producer on many productions such as “The Blues Brothers” and “Happy Gilmore,” died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Thursday night at a Los Angeles hospital, according to a statement released on Friday by Brillstein Entertainment Partners. He was 77.

Bernie Brillstein helped direct the careers of comic actors John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and Muppets creator Jim Henson. Furthermore, he also facilitated the television broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” and “The Sopranos”.

Together with associate Brad Grey, he founded the influential management and production company Brillstein-Grey Entertainment in 1991, which is presently named Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Brad Grey left three years ago to run the Paramount Pictures movie studio.

He served as executive producer on numerous movies including “The Blues Brothers,” starring Belushi and Aykroyd, hit-production “Ghostbusters”, plus TV comedies such as the 1990s big success “NewsRadio.”

“With his boundless passion, energy and wisdom, Bernie inspired the culture and success that we’re blessed with today,” Jon Liebman, chief executive officer of Brillstein Entertainment Partners, said in a statement, as cited by Reuters.

In his memoir, “Where Did I Go Right? — You’re No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead,” published in 1999, he summoned up that in the early days at the William Morris Agency in New York he helped settle a Broadway musical deal for an artist, but then discovered that she had been dead for four years.

Born April 26, 1931, in New York, Bernie Brillstein was the nephew of renowned radio comic Jack Pearl. He started his career in the mail room of the William Morris Agency, a talent company.

Brillstein is survived by his wife Carrie and his five sons.