Background
Rosenberg was born and raised in a Conservative Jewish family, in Passaic, New Jersey, where he attended Passaic High School, graduating in 1966.
Rosenberg was born and raised in a Conservative Jewish family, in Passaic, New Jersey, where he attended Passaic High School, graduating in 1966.
He attended Bard College and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was an active leader in the Students for a Democratic Society and its protests against United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
Mark"s younger brother, Alan, became an actor, Alan later said, "to effect social and political change" and eventually became Screen Actors Guild President. He moved to Los Angeles to take a position in film marketing with Seineger & Associates. He was hired as a literary agent with International Creative Management and later with Adams, Ray & Rosenberg.
He became vice president for production at Warner Brothers in 1978.
Rosenberg was named by Warner Brothers as the president of movie production in July 1983, making him one of the youngest executives to head the film production division of a major motion picture studio, at the age of 35. Rosenberg replaced Robert Shapiro, whose departure was attributed in industry sources cited by The New York Times as due to poor financial results for the studio"s film in the previous 18 months.
He left Warner Brothers in September 1985. He joined Sydney Pollack in 1985 at Mirage Productions, where their first production was the 1988 release of Bright Lights, Big City, based on the novel by Jay McInerney.
Other films produced at Mirage include Major League and Presumed Innocent.
The company had a production agreement with Warner Brothers, where they produced The Fabulous Baker Boys, and Flesh and Bone, the film he was producing at the time of his death. Rosenberg, a resident of Los Angeles, died at age 44 on November 6, 1992 of heart failure on a movie set in Stanton, Texas during the production of the film Flesh and Bone.