Lorraine Williams
| Lorraine Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lorraine Dille Williams |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Businessperson |
| Known for | Manager of TSR, Inc., 1986-1997 |
Lorraine Dille Williams is an American businesswoman. She was hired as manager of TSR, Inc. by company co-founder Gary Gygax in 1984, and was in charge of the gaming company from 1986 to 1997. Williams gained control of TSR the following year when the Blume brothers sold her their controlling shares of the company. In 1996, an unexpectedly high cost of returned (unsold) fiction books and an expensive, unsuccessful foray into the collectible card game market caused a cash flow squeeze, and Williams was forced to sell TSR to Wizards of the Coast in 1997.
Williams inherited the rights to Buck Rogers and a large collection of Buck Rogers memorabilia. She sold the memorabilia at auction in 2010.
Lorraine Williams is the granddaughter of John F. Dille who, while president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate in the 1920s, arranged for Buck Rogers to be turned into a syndicated comic strip. After Dille's death in 1957, ownership of Buck Rogers and other works passed into the Dille Family Trust through the Dille family trust, making Williams one of the beneficiaries of the Buck Rogers franchise. When the trust was sold, the Dille family retained the licensing of Buck Rogers, as well as a collection of Buck Rogers memorabilia that John F. Dille had accumulated over thirty years.
Williams attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned a B.A. in history. After graduating, she worked at the National Newspaper Syndicate. She then became an assistant administrator at the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center. Later, she joined the National Easter Seal Society, where she worked as an administrator.
Gary Gygax, co-inventor of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and partner in the company TSR, had been sent to Hollywood in 1982 to work on licensing the Dungeons & Dragons brand, leaving the day-to-day operations of TSR to his fellow board members, Kevin and Brian Blume. While in Hollywood, he was involved in the making of the Dungeons & Dragons animated television show and exploring the possibility of a film adaptation of the game. In the course of his work, Gygax met Flint Dille, with whom he collaborated on a series of choose-your-own-adventure-type novels and a script for an unmade Dungeons & Dragons film. In 1984, Gygax was alerted to the fact that TSR was $1.5 million in debt and the Blumes were looking for a buyer. In an attempt to bring new investment money into the company, Gygax asked Flint Dille to arrange a meeting with his sister, Lorraine Williams.
...
Wikipedia