Chasing the Panther: Adventures and Misadventures of a Cinematic Life

A cinematic and vibrant coming-of-age memoir, Chasing the Panther captures the thrilling and, at times, heartbreaking early years of Carolyn Pfeiffer, a pioneering film producer and one of Hollywood's first female executives—a “mini-mogul” in the words of the Wall Street Journal.  

For a moment in the 1980s, Carolyn Pfeiffer was the only woman in Hollywood who could greenlight a movie. Working with directors like Sam Shepard and Wes Craven, and with actors like River Phoenix and Bette Davis, she had a hand in producing or distributing many landmark films, among them Ridley Scott's The Duellists, Alan Rudolph's Choose Me, and the Academy Award-winning Kiss of the Spider Woman. However, long before establishing herself as a player in the world of film, Carolyn was a horseback-riding tomboy who dreamed of exploring the world beyond her small hometown. Her journey turned out to be a tale fit for the movies.

As a young girl jumping from rock to rock in a rural North Carolina town, Carolyn felt a calling she couldn’t articulate but that she nonetheless understood: it was a tug on her heart, a yearning for something more. When she could, she set out for New York City, a refuge for young women exercising their independence and resisting the pressures of marriage and motherhood. There, swept up in the glamorous world of beat poets and millionaires, Carolyn brushed shoulders with a young Burt Reynolds and became fast friends with an English journalist named Penny. 

As the turbulent 1960s dawned, Carolyn booked a one-way passage to Europe. Her plan was to visit Penny and to travel around Europe for the summer but, instead, the world opened up to her in ways she never could have imagined. She found herself on set with Italy’s great filmmakers, in the couture houses of Paris’ fashion icons, and swept up in the youthful energy flooding London. She learned about film and found work on iconic movies like Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, and David Lean's Doctor Zhivago, and she came to befriend and work alongside luminaries like the Beatles, Tennessee Williams, Francoise Truffaut, and Barbra Streisand. Amid these adventures and misadventures, Carolyn fell in and out of love, and was beset by tragedies and triumphs that resoundingly affirmed what she'd known since girlhood—that she was always destined for something more.

Set against the dazzling backdrop of Fellini's Rome, the Paris of the French New Wave, and Swinging London, Chasing the Panther reads like a true-to-life novel revealing Carolyn’s unforgettable journey to find her place in the world.

Carolyn Pfeiffer is an American film producer. She was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Madison, North Carolina. After attending Guilford College, she moved to Europe and began a career in motion pictures. She first worked in Rome as Claudia Cardinale's assistant on films, including Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, and Blake Edwards's The Pink Panther. She then moved to Paris and worked as an associate producer for Alain Delon's production company. Within a year, she joined Omar Sharif as his executive assistant and worked on many of his films, including Doctor Zhivago.

Four years later, Carolyn moved to London and started her own public relations company. Her numerous clients included Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, François Truffaut, Robert Altman, The Beatles' company Apple Corps Ltd., and Paul McCartney and Wings.

At thirty-five, she returned to the United States and became a founding partner and president and CEO of Alive Films, an independent production and distribution company that released many groundbreaking films, among them Kiss of the Spider Woman (which garnered William Hurt an Academy Award), Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, and Alan Rudolph's Choose Me. At the time, she was the only woman in Hollywood who could greenlight a movie--a "mini-mogul" in the words of the Wall Street Journal. During this time, she worked with River Phoenix, Sam Shepherd, Jessica Lange, Patricia Arquette, Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, and many other equally talented actors and filmmakers.