Star Trek and Transformers producer Roberto Orci dies aged 51

Hollywood producer Robert Orci, who was behind the Transformers films and Star Trek reboots, has died aged 51. Orci died on Tuesday at his LA home from kidney disease, Variety reports. The Mexican-American screenwriter began his career in TV with longtime collaborator and school friend Alex Kurtzman on shows such as Xena: Warrior Princess before working with JJ Abrams on Fringe.

Orci and Kurtzman then continued their professional relationship with Abrams on Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness and Mission: Impossible III. They also worked with Michael Bay on the Transformers franchise after producing The Island with the director.

Orci and Kurtzman’s other projects include TV show Sleepy Hollow and romcom The Proposal, which stars Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. In 2010, they developed the reboot of procedural Hawaii Five-O, which ran for over 200 episodes. Orci’s credits also include The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Now You See Me, The Mummy and The Legend of Zorro.

Throughout his career, he achieved many accolades including being one of The Hollywood Reporter’s 50 most powerful Latinos in Hollywood. In 2020, Orci married Hail, Caesar! actor and screenwriter Adele Heather Taylor. In August, she filed a lawsuit against Orci accusing him of physical and sexual abuse. In it, she also alleged he was a violent alcoholic.

It was a response to a suit Orci had filed in June in which he alleged she had assaulted him and manipulated him for financial gain while he battled alcoholism. Orci’s spokesperson Salle Hofmesiter told Variety at the time: ‘Ms. Taylor’s counterclaim is an attempt to retaliate against her husband with fabricated allegations after he got a restraining order against her, filed for divorce, and sued her in June for assault, battery, and financially abusing him when he was vulnerable and trying to get treatment for alcoholism.’.

Orci was previously married to actor Melissa Blake but she filed for divorce in 2016. It was eventually settled in 2020. Born in Mexico City to a Mexican father and Cuban mother, Orci spent his childhood in Mexico before moving to the US at the age of ten.

He met Kurtzman when both were 17-year-old students at Crossroads, a private school in Santa Monica, California. Orci studied at the University of Texas at Austin before pursuing a career in film and TV. He is survived by his parents, Macuqui Robau-Garcia and Roberto Orci Sr, his stepmother, Jeanine Orci and his three siblings, Courtney Ford, JR Orci and Taylor Orci.

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