David Siegel

Director

David A. Siegel (born May 3, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois; died April 5, 2025) was an American actor, producer, and businessman of Jewish descent who grew up in Miami after his family moved there in 1945. He graduated from Miami Senior High School in 1953 and studied marketing at the University of Miami before dropping out. He founded Mystery Fun House in Orlando in 1976 and became the founder of Westgate Resorts, owning the largest single-family home in the United States (86,000 sq ft) in Southern Florida. He was married three times — to Geraldine Florence Sanstrom (1961–1968), Betty Tucker (1970–1997), and Jackie Siegel (2000–2025) — and had twelve children. He died of cancer at age 89. His acting credits are limited: a Crime Scene Detective in Held for Ransom (2000, with Dennis Hopper and Randy Spelling), a Policeman in Night Terror (2002, which he also produced), and an appearance as himself in the documentary The Queen of Versailles (2012, directed by Lauren Greenfield). Following the death of his daughter Victoria in 2015 from an accidental drug overdose, he and his wife Jackie founded the Victoria's Voice Foundation to raise awareness about the opioid crisis.