Founder of Fandango Dies After Plunge From Manhattan Hotel

J. Michael Cline, the co-founder of Fandango, an online ticketing company that changed how Americans went to the movies, died this week after falling from the twentieth floor of a Manhattan hotel, according to the police.

New York City police officers, who responded to a 911 call at the Kimberly Hotel on Tuesday, “found an unconscious and unresponsive male with injuries indicative of a fall from an elevated position,” a spokesman for the police said in a statement. The police confirmed that Mr. Cline, whose body was identified on Wednesday, had jumped.

Mr. Cline, who was 64, co-founded Fandango in 2000 and left the company in 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company — familiar to many from its splashy logo, an orange “F” in the shape of a ticket stub — was later acquired by Comcast and is currently owned by NBCUniversal and Warner Bros.

For years, the company dominated movie-ticket sales, handling ticketing for several major theater chains and making money by charging a processing fee for online ticket sales and by selling advertising on its site.

At the time of its launch, Mr. Cline offered a pithy explanation for the company’s name: “A Fandango is fast and fun,” he told Variety. “Fandango is the perfect match to a service designed to make going to the movies easier and more enjoyable than ever before.”

Art Levitt, the co-founder and former chief operating officer and president of Fandango, remembered Mr. Cline as brilliant, creative and loyal, sticking it out even in “tough” times. He said his former business partner was also “a bit of an adventurer.” With Fandango, Mr. Levitt said, “he saw an opportunity in the market” and asked Mr. Levitt to manage it.