Career
De Passe began her career at Motown as Creative Assistant to company founder, Berry Gordy. Early in her career, de Passe helped bring the Jackson 5 to his attention during their time with Motown. She was instrumental in taking the record label to television with a host of critically acclaimed and highly rated specials, including the multiple award winning Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever produced while she was President of Motown Productions.
When Motown was sold, she partnered with her mentor in Gordy/de Passe Productions and subsequently established de Passe Entertainment in 1992. De Passe's long association with Mr. Gordy was featured in the December 2008 issue of Vanity Fair: Motown the Untold Story, The Labels Greatest Legends, In Their Own Words with photography by Annie Liebovitz.
The subject of two Harvard Business School case studies: "Suzanne de Passe and Motown Productions" and "de Passe Entertainment", de Passe has lectured at the Harvard Business School on several occasions. In 2002, de Passe was named Time Warner Visiting Professor to the Department of Radio, Television and Film at Howard University's John H. Johnson School of Communications, a post she held for the requisite 3 years. During Howard University's 138th Charter Day celebration in March 2006, de Passe received an honorary doctorate degree of Doctor of Humanities. De Passe is currently serving as the Producer-in-Residence at Emerson College, School of the Arts in Boston. She also served as the Emerson College 2007 Balfour Distinguished Lecturer.
De Passe served as Executive Producer of the half-hour, situation comedies, Sister, Sister and Smart Guy, both of which aired on the WB Network and were produced in association with Paramount and Disney Television, respectively.
From 2002 until 2008 served as Executive Producer of Showtime at the Apollo, a weekly variety program nationally syndicated by Warner Brother/Telepictures. In 2005 and 2006 she co-created, wrote, and Executive Produced the Black Movie Awards for TNT. Currently, she is developing King, a film on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
De Passe is currently featured in HBO's, The Black List: Vol. 2. This is the second installment of the documentary including other prominent African Americans such as filmmaker Tyler Perry, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Pastor T.D. Jakes.
Read more about this topic: Suzanne De Passe
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