An award-winning producer, distinguished across a range of content platforms, Simon Fields served, from 2003 to March 2013, as President, in partnership with Jennifer Lopez, at Nuyorican Productions. The partnership in the Los Angeles-based film and television Production Company began as a result of their successful collaboration on the film Shall We Dance, which grossed over $250 million worldwide.
Fields, a native of London, received his education at Stowe School. After graduation he worked his way through the television commercial production ranks in London to become production manager for the Moving Picture Company. In 1980, Fields became a producer for Jon Roseman Productions and moved to L.A. within a year to run its U.S. division.
In 1981 he co-founded Limelight, a company focused on music video, commercial and feature film production, with operations in Los Angeles and London. As president and CEO, Fields—along with co-president Steve Barron—led the growth of the company to annual revenues of over $150 million, overseeing an award-winning television commercial division, whose accounts included Calvin Klein, Nike and Budweiser, as well as producing the hit feature film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Under Fields’ leadership, Limelight became distinguished as a leader in music video production, garnering numerous awards, including a Grammy, for innovative projects with Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Peter Gabriel, A-Ha, David Bowie and a myriad of others.
Toward the end of his 12-year tenure with Limelight, Fields teamed with director Peter Chelsom in developing and producing feature films. Together they shepherded the romantic comedy Hear My Song, the Buena Vista distributed Funny Bones starring Oliver Platt and Jerry Lewis (which earned Fields and Chelsom a London Critics Circle Film Award for British Producer of the Year), Serendipity starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, and the romantic comedy Shall We Dance, starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez.
Through Nuyorican, Fields has produced several feature films and served as executive producer on many television productions. He has produced, with Nuyorican, the crime drama Bordertown starring Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas, the Picture House release of El Cantante, the story of salsa pioneer Hector Lavoe, starring Lopez and Marc Anthony, and the Sony Pictures release of Feel the Noise, a drama set in New York & Puerto Rico. The company has also produced Dancelife, a dance competition reality series for MTV, and South Beach, an edgy series set in South Beach about a young man’s rights of passage. Fields also developed and served as Executive producer on the ABC FAMILY scripted show The Fosters, which premiered in June 2013. In addition to a prolific development slate with scripted projects at Fox, ABC and CBS, Nuyorican, under Fields tenure, also boasts a fast growing non-scripted/reality division, and recently completed production on South Beach Tow’s third season. Fields, under his new production banner, FIELDS ENTERTAINMENT, is currently in production on the second season of The Carbonaro Effect for TruTV. Fields is in pre-production on the motion picture Blowback, in partnership with Shine Pictures. Fields is also in early development with TWC to bring Serendipity to the stage in 2016.
