In 1999, Variety named Marshall Persinger as one of the “Producers to Watch.” She is partnered with writer/director George Armitage (Miami Blues, Grosse Pointe Blank) in Alleged Productions, which was formed to make intelligent and thought-provoking films utilizing proven talent in a variety of genres.
As president of Fresh Produce Company from 1996 to 1999, Persinger produced several independent feature films, including Still Breathing (written and directed by James F. Robinson, and starring Brendan Fraser and Joanna Going), Kill the Man (written and directed by Jon Kean and Tom Booker), and Twin Falls Idaho (directed by Michael Polish from a screenplay by Michael and Mark Polish; nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, and winner of the Jury Prize at the Deauville Festival of American Cinema).
She began her film industry career in NYC, with Jonathan Demme as her mentor. After working on Jonathan Demme’s film version of Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia, she joined Demme’s production company, Clinica Estetico. She worked as assistant to producer Ed Saxon on Demme’s Married to the Mob; as production supervisor on George Armitage’s Miami Blues; and as post-production supervisor on Demme’s Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs.
Relocating to Los Angeles, she produced (with Gary Goetzman) E. Max Frye’s Amos & Andrew; and the short film Tick, Tick, Tick (which screened at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival). She then went to work with Academy Award-winning producer Mark Johnson; and worked in production capacities on several films, including John Singleton’s Higher Learning and the HBO feature Don’t Look Back (written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson).
Persinger is a native of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Rhetoric and Communications. Before beginning her film career in 1986, she was Vice President for Blandfield Securities, a Manhattan investment advisory firm.
