J. Michael Cline, Founder of Fandango, Dies After Falling From New York Hotel

J. Michael Cline, a finance executive who founded the ticketing company Fandango, died Tuesday after falling from a high-rise hotel in New York City. He was 64.

The New York Police Department told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday that officers responded to The Kimberly Hotel on East 50th Street at 10:19 a.m. Tuesday following 911 calls. “Upon arrival, officers found an unconscious and unresponsive male with injuries indicative of a fall from an elevated position,” the NYPD statement continued. “The investigation remains ongoing.”

EMS pronounced the man, later identified as Cline, dead. His cause of death wasn’t immediately available, though there are several reports that he died by suicide.

Cline, who completed his undergraduate at Cornell University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School, founded Fandango, a movie ticketing service, in 2000. He stayed with the company, which was acquired by Comcast in 2007, for more than a decade before leaving in 2011. Fandango is now owned by NBCUniversal and Warner Bros.

He also founded several other companies including R1 RCM, Accolade, Insureon, Everspring and Accumen, among others, and was a founding managing partner of Accretive, LLC. Before Accretive, Cline was a general partner at General Atlantic, and prior to that, an associate at McKinsey & Company.

Cline was also currently serving as executive chairman of investment firm Juxtapose, according to this
LinkedIn, as well as chairman of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

He is survived by his wife Pamela B. Cline and their six children.

THR has reached out to Fandango for comment.