Favourite Producers
List activity
26 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
9 people
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Actor
Famed for his relentless ambition, bad temper and genius for publicity, Samuel Goldwyn became Hollywood's leading "independent" producer -- largely because none of his partners could tolerate him for long. Born Shmuel (or Schmuel) Gelbfisz, probably in 1879, in the Jewish section of Warsaw, he was the eldest of six children of a struggling used-furniture dealer. In 1895 he made his way to England, where relatives Anglicized his name to Samuel Goldfish. There he begged (or stole) enough money for a ticket in steerage across the Atlantic. He reached the US, probably via Canada, in 1898. He gravitated to Gloversville, New York, in the Adirondack foothills, which was then the capital of the US leather glove industry; he became one of the country's most successful glove salesmen. After moving his base of operations to Manhattan and marrying the sister of Jesse L. Lasky, who was then a theatrical producer, Goldfish convinced Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille to go into film production. The new company's first film, The Squaw Man (1914), was one of the first features made in Hollywood; the company later became the nucleus of what would later become Paramount Pictures. As his marriage fell apart, Goldfish dissolved his partnership with Lasky. His next enterprise was the Goldwyn Co., founded in 1916 and named for himself and his partners, brothers Edgar Selwyn and Archibald Selwyn--Goldfish liked the name so much he took it for his own. The Goldwyn Co.'s stars included Mabel Normand, Madge Kennedy and Will Rogers, but its most famous legacy was its "Leo the Lion" trademark, which was adopted by its successor company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Goldwyn himself was ousted from his own company before the merger, which was why his name became part of MGM even though he himself had nothing to do with the company. After his firing Goldwyn would have nothing to do with partners and went into independent production on his own, and for 35 years was the boss and sole proprietor of his own production company, a mini-studio specializing in expensive "quality" films, distributed initially by United Artists and later by RKO. His contract actors at various times included Vilma Bánky, Ronald Colman, Eddie Cantor, Gary Cooper, David Niven and Danny Kaye. In some cases, Goldwyn collected substantial fees for "lending" his stars to other producers. Touted by publicists for his "Goldwyn touch" and loathed by many of his hirelings for his habit of ordering films recast, rewritten and recut, Goldwyn is best remembered for his films that teamed director William Wyler and cinematographer Gregg Toland.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
On November 1, 1895, the first public motion picture film presentation was projected at Berlin's Wintergarten with the "Bioscop" apparatus invented by Max Skladanowsky and Emil Skladanowsky. In December 1895, Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière began exhibiting projected films to the paying public in Paris with their "Cinematographe," a portable camera, printer and projector. Thomas A. Edison's company meanwhile had developed the "Vitascope" for motion picture projection. In 1896, the Gaumont Film Company became the first film company in the world, founded before any other studios. Within a few years, the 35-mm wide Edison film and the 16-frames-per-second projection speed of the Lumière Cinématographe had become the industry standard.
On July 20, 1889, Erich Pommer was born at Altpetristrasse 496, Hildesheim, Germany. As a boy going to school in Göttingen, he neglected some classes in preference to reading stories and books by famous writers of all ages, in English and French as well as German. After he and his brothers had finished sufficient schooling to require only one year of military service, the family moved to Berlin.
In 1906, Pommer went to work at Machol & Lewin's Men's Furnishings shop. There he met his future wife, Gertrud (Gerdy) Levy, who was the company's accountant and whom he married in 1913 in a civil ceremony.
In 1907, Pommer's younger sister Grete, who was working at the Berlin office of the Gaumont Film Company, told him that they needed another salesman. Pommer applied and got the job to make bookings for Gaumont films at movie theaters.
There he met a young projectionist who aspired to become a film cameraman; Karl Freund and Pommer become lifelong friends.
By 1909, Pommer was so successful that he wrote in his letters about "chasing all over Germany and beyond, almost to the border of Turkey". Soon thereafter, Gaumont placed him in charge of film distribution for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Through his job, he met many film executives, including Marcel Vandal, the director-general of the Éclair Company, with whom he became close friends.
In 1911, Pommer served his mandatory year in the German Army. During his first leave that year, Vandal invited him to Paris, where Pommer was well impressed by the equipment at the Éclair studios (they started manufacturing cameras in 1912).
Pommer did not return to Gaumont because their Berlin office wanted to keep control over Pommer's Vienna branch, while he wanted to report to the Paris corporate headquarters. Instead, he joined Éclair where he would report directly to its Paris headquarters.
Pommer started Éclair's newsreel division. Éclair News photographed a balloon flight in Vienna, with Pommer scheduled to shoot the aerial shots while his cameraman photographed from the ground. Just as Pommer was about to enter the gondola, a gust of wind blew the balloon into the air with him hanging on the outside. He was pulled into the gondola and covered the flight as he had intended. After landing, Pommer found out that his cameraman on the ground was so worried about Pommer that he forgot to crank the camera and got no shots of Pommer hanging outside the balloon and being pulled in. Pommer fired the cameraman for not photographing his assignment regardless of circumstances.
After film, flying and the development of aviation was perhaps Pommer's greatest fascination. The Wright brothers' first flight in 1903 may not have had any impact on him, but in August 1908 a demonstration in LeMans, France, made the Wright brothers world-famous. By 1912, Pommer had made the acquaintance of and flew with Louis Blériot, the first man to fly across the English Channel. Pommer had started to produce feature films, and one of his first two productions Das Geheimnis der Lüfte (1913) (Mystery of the Air) had an aviation theme. In 1933, his last pre-Hitler German production was F. P. 1 Doesn't Answer (1933), a science-fiction film with an aviation background.
At that time and throughout the first half of the 20th century, a creative producer could initiate, coordinate, supervise and control all aspects of a motion picture from inception through completion, including release. Pommer became an exemplar of the "creative producer" and remained so throughout his career.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Pommer was immediately called into service by the German army. He arranged to place the assets of his French employer, Éclair, into a German company called Decla (Deutsche Éclair), while he served on both the Western and the Eastern fronts. He was seriously wounded twice and was awarded the Iron Cross.
In 1916, the Pommer's son Hans (later changed to John) was born. That same year the German Government founded the Bild-und-Filmamt (Bufa). Still a non-commissioned officer, Pommer was placed in charge of its Bucharest, Romania office where he supervised all stage and film showings until the end of the war.
During one of his trips for Bufa, going between Berlin and Bucharest, Pommer stopped over in Vienna where he was introduced to a young actor with training in art and architecture, who was interested in films. Pommer initially engaged in conversation only to be polite. However, he ended up talking with Fritz Lang the entire night, finally inviting Lang to come work for Decla after the war.
Since the early 1900s, Max Reinhardt had been giving the German theater a new dimension to old plays through powerful performances and a targeted combination of stage design, language, music and dance. Film was the new medium that could bring those dimensions to the entire public. A number of Reinhardt-trained directors and actors transitioned to film, including to Decla.
After the war, Pommer assumed hands-on management of Decla. Before the war, France dominated the European film market. Soon after the war concluded, Germany's film companies faced a new competitor - Hollywood. Pommer, however, was by then an experienced film businessman with insight into the international implications of the film industry. Post-war competition between international film companies was sometimes hostile. The Berlin trade press saw Decla as the emerging leader in the industry, crediting Pommer's "very skillful and goal-oriented leadership."
Decla acquired large movie theaters through the Decla-Lichtspiel-GmbH as well as more theaters, studios and distribution channels through mergers with other companies. In 1919, Decla merged with Meinert Film and Oliver-Film. In February 1920, Decla released the first of several international hits, including Fritz Lang's spy thriller Die Spinnen (Spiders) and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
In 1921, Decla merged with Deutsche Bioscop, which owned the large Babelsberg Studios. In 1922, Universum Film (Ufa) bought Decla-Bioscop and placed Pommer in direct charge of most of its product. Pommer was also able to improve Babelsberg and made it into the largest film studio in Europe.
Ufa had grown out of the wartime Bufa through a series of forced mergers. As Prof. Thomas Elsaesser has pointed out, with the acquisition of Decla-Bioscop, Ufa had became a modern multi-national company and media conglomerate. Very aware of Hollywood, Ufa tried to emulate it, rival with it, or differentiate itself from it. Focused on principles of product differentiation and niche marketing, Ufa deliberately created an art cinema and super-productions for export (the latter specifically designed and budgeted to break into the American market), while it looked to domestic cinema based on popular genres and stars for its economic foundation.
Pommer's and Ufa's international successes during this time included Fritz Lang's two-part Nibelungen (Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (1924)) and F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh (1922) where the camera was "unchained" for the first moving shots taking place by strapping the camera to Karl Freund's chest and allowing him to walk forward and backward. When Pommer and Lang attended the U.S. Premiere of Nibelungen, they saw the skyline of New York as their ship came into harbor. The view inspired the look for Metropolis (1927), probably Ufa's most ambitious project thus far. Typical for Pommer productions, Metropolis implemented new film techniques, including the first zoom shot where Karl Freund sat on a swing with the camera on his lap, pulling focus as he was swung forward and back.
By 1926, disagreements arose between Pommer and Ufa's new CEO and its Board of Directors appointed by Deutsche Bank, including whether the studio should invest in developing sound technology and over the terms of the Parufamet agreement (which later proved disastrous for Ufa, as Pommer had predicted). Pommer therefore left Ufa, even before Metropolis was finished shooting. Under financial pressure, Ufa management also did not allow Fritz Lang to participate in post-production, so the film was never shown as intended. Nonetheless, images of Metropolis have influenced many science-fiction films. The most complete version of the film since its Berlin premiere in 1927 was released in 2010, after discovery of 16mm footage in South America and restoration by the Murnau Foundation and the Deutsche Kinemathek.
Having left Ufa, Pommer brought his family to Hollywood. After producing Mauritz Stiller's Hotel Imperial (1927) and Barbed Wire (1927), both with Pola Negri, for Paramount and several uncredited films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including The Demi-Bride (1927) with Norma Shearer and Mockery (1927) with Lon Chaney, Pommer returned to Berlin in 1928 at the request of a new Ufa ownership. He did not resume his old position but produced films as an independent within Ufa.
When sound came, Pommer often made simultaneous multiple language versions of his films with the same international crew, including The Blue Angel (1930) introducing Marlene Dietrich and directed by Josef von Sternberg and Bombs Over Monte Carlo (1931) starring Hans Albers. In addition, Pommer continued to experiment with innovative musicals, such as Wilhelm Thiele's Three from the Filling Station (1930) (The Three Good Friends) with Willy Fritsch and Lilian Harvey.
In February 1933, Pommer, accompanied by his wife Gerdy, traveled to New York for business meetings. They left New York a week or so later to return to Germany. On the last night before reaching Europe, they were guests at the captain's table. In those days, intercontinental communications were strictly by transatlantic cable. Radio had only a limited range. During dinner, the radio officer reported to the captain that European stations had just come into range. After the meal, the captain invited his guests to the radio room. In honor of the Pommers, the captain asked the operator to find a German station. Soon over the loudspeaker came one of Hermann Göring's early, vitriolic anti-Semitic speeches!
The Pommers stopped over in Paris before traveling on to Berlin. Their French and American friends counseled them not to return to Germany as it could be dangerous. With their son still in Berlin, staying in Paris was not a option. They returned to Berlin near the end of March 1933. Ludwig Klitzsch, chairman of the board of Ufa, personally assured Pommer the following day that Ufa would make no distinction between Aryan and non-Aryan employees. However on 28 March 1933, Josef Goebbels assembled the leaders of the motion picture industry at the Hotel Kaiserhof to explain the Nazi concepts of film policy and production. Pommer did not attend this meeting.
The following day, at its Meeting No. 905, the Ufa Board complied fully with the Nazi directions. Regarding the "national question" about continuing the employment of Jewish employees, the Executive Board decided that the contracts with Jewish executives and employees should be terminated. Item (4) of the meeting reads in part: "It was also decided to terminate the contract with Pommer, in view of the impossibility under the present circumstances of exhibiting his films." Pommer sent his wife and son to the safety of Paris.
Josef Goebbels tried to have Pommer run the German motion picture industry for him. During his years as Ufa production chief and president of the Spitzenorganisation of the German film industry, Pommer had been very active in the export of German films. He was in close contact with aides of German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, and Pommer had maintained his connections to the Aussenamt (Foreign Office) through the years. He was approached by some of his contacts in the Foreign Office on behalf of Goebbels in April 1933. Pommer never had the slightest intention of coming to terms with the Nazis. Nevertheless, he entered a series of talks with Stresemann's aides, held at his home. These discussions gave him enough time to arrange for his business affairs and pending commitments.
By early May 1933, Pommer felt that he could not stall Goebbels any longer. In his last meeting with the Foreign Office officials, he showed them a recent notification from John's high school of a meeting to discuss the school's participation in a May Day parade. Pommer also showed them a newspaper article, advising that Jewish pupils would not be allowed to participate with their fellow students in the parade. He asked the Aussenamt officials: "Gentlemen, how can you expect me to work in a country that summons my son to school to tell him in front of his peers that he is not good enough to participate with them in the parade?" The next morning Pommer received his exit visa.
That evening, Pommer boarded the express train to Paris. He knew that the Nazis were arresting passengers at the border. When the train stopped in Hannover, he got off. He had his car and driver waiting. They crossed the border into Belgium, without incident, at a local crossing normally not used for Berlin-Paris traffic. Perhaps the diplomats had been kind enough to delay their report to the Nazis. Pommer was also permitted to export his household belongings to France, although they were later confiscated in Paris by the German Army.
In France, Pommer produced two films for Fox, Fritz Lang's Liliom (1934) (the storyline was later used for the musical Carousel), with Charles Boyer and Madeleine Ozeray, and Max Ophüls' On a volé un homme (1934), with Lili Damita and Charles Fallot On June 5, 1933, the United States went off the gold standard. Later in the year, Fox management came to the conclusion that - due to the new exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against French franc - production activities on the European continent were no longer financially advisable. They directed Pommer to complete the two films that were in production and then move with his family to Hollywood. This was one of several decisions that possibly saved Pommer's immediate family from becoming victims of the Holocaust.
After Pommer produced one more film, Joe May's Music in the Air (1934) with Gloria Swanson, Fox was acquired by 20th Century. Louis B. Mayer tried to bring him to MGM, but Pommer had already made a handshake deal with Alexander Korda to go to London. There he produced two films for Korda's London Film Productions: Fire Over England (1937) with Laurence Olivier and Tim Whelan's Troopship (1937).
During the filming of Fire Over England, Pommer met Charles Laughton who was starring in Korda's Rembrandt (1936). When Laughton's next project,I, Claudius (1937), was canceled, Laughton and Pommer founded Mayflower Pictures. Pommer had previously worked well with reputedly difficult actors, and he worked very well with Laughton. He produced three films with Laughton, including The Beachcomber (1938), where Pommer took over as director, The Sidewalks of London (1938), where Laughton starred with Vivien Leigh, and Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) that introduced Maureen O'Hara.
In 1939, Pommer was in New York negotiating with RKO to distribute Mayflower's future productions when World War II broke out in Europe. Pommer still had a German passport and could not risk return to England. He went to RKO where he produced Dorothy Arzner's Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) with Maureen O'Hara and Lucille Ball, and also Garson Kanin's They Knew What They Wanted (1940) with Charles Laughton and Carole Lombard. In 1941, Pommer had five more films in preparation, with scripts completed for three, when his heart attack forced a hiatus.
In 1946, he was hired by the U.S. State Department and later transferred to the War Department - with assimilated rank of Colonel - to reorganize the German motion picture industry in the American Zone as Chief Film Officer, Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS). Working under strict policies to prevent Nazis and Communists from entering the film industry, he was to reorganize and later to rebuild the German film industry and its private assets as part of the Marshall Plan, the overall plan of reconstruction of the German industrial base destroyed in WWII. He headquartered in war-devastated Berlin and quickly re-instituted his practice of frequent dinner parties, not only to transact business but also to feed film industry colleagues who were starving in the post-war chaos. He would often "rest his eyes" during meetings, surprising colleagues who thought he was sleeping when he would suddenly add insightful comments and offer solutions to the discussion.
Pommer was in charge of new film production in the U.S. Zone, which meant that he was responsible to guide studios and film producers, approve all scripts and major contracts, supervise new productions and studio operations, and supervise the financial arrangements of producers, studios and distributors concerning new films. Production of "Rubble Films" began in West Germany, a neorealist genre characterized by location exteriors in the rubble of bombed-out cities, began, including Harald Braun's Zwischen gestern und morgen (1947) and Josef von Báky's And the Heaven Above us (1947).
In June 1948, in an attempt to wrest control of Berlin from the West, the Soviet Union began a blockade. American and British planners devised an airlift. The pilots and crews of 342 planes made 277,000 flights to deliver millions of tons of food and clothing to Berlin until the blockade was lifted. Denied use of the Babelsberg Studios, which were in the Russian Zone, Pommer had been rebuilding Berlin's Tempelhof Studios. Although the Tempelhof Studios were eventually rebuilt, they were then not yet ready, and the blockade forced the focus of production away from Berlin and Pommer to move his headquarters to Munich and its Geiselgasteig Studios, which had survived the war intact.
During his tour of duty with OMGUS, Pommer was able to abolish government censorship of films in Germany through establishment of a national Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (Voluntary Self-Control) system, envisioned as an improvement on the U.S. Motion Picture Production Code system. Pommer also built greater flexibility into the process through periodic critical self-review. Initially opposed by the Soviets, the British and the French, all protecting their own economic and political interests, the FSK system was eventually adopted throughout Europe and continues to this day. After three years, having re-established the film industry throughout West Germany and considering his job complete, Pommer returned to California in 1949. He and Dorothy Arzner together planned a new production company, Signature Pictures, but promised financing fell through.
In 1950, Pommer again returned to Munich, as the best location for his next films despite the fact that his work for OMGUS in abolishing state censorship of films had been over the vehement opposition of politicians in the State Government of Bavaria. After Pommer resumed producing films in Munich, Bavarian politicians continued to complicate his professional life.
Pommer's first post-war film, The Mistress (1952) with Hans Albers won the Best Picture Award at the 1951 Berlin Film Festival. His last film, Sons, Mothers and a General (1955) was awarded the Grand Prize of the Belgian Critics as Best Picture of 1955, beating out such remarkable films as Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and Blackboard Jungle (1955). Pommer's last film was also awarded the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in the U.S. under the title Sons, Mothers, and a General.
In 1956, Pommer took what was to be a two months' trip to the United States to negotiate for an English-dubbed version of Sons, Mothers, and a General. While he was in California, a foot infection aggravated by diabetes worsened to such a degree as to require amputation of his right leg and a long-term recovery. He could not return to Germany. He canceled all projects and retired. He lived in a modest house in Southern California with Gerdy until she died in 1960. Then he lived with his son's family, including his two grandchildren, until his death in 1966.- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
One of a large group of Hungarian refugees who found refuge in England in the 1930s, Sir Alexander Korda was the first British film producer to receive a knighthood. He was a major, if controversial, figure and acted as a guiding force behind the British film industry of the 1930s and continued to influence British films until his death in 1956. He learned his trade by working in studios in Austria, Germany and America and was a crafty and flamboyant businessman. He started his production company, London Films, in 1933 and one of its first films The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), received an Oscar nomination as best picture and won the Best Actor Oscar for its star, Charles Laughton. Helped by his brothers Zoltan Korda (director) and Vincent Korda (art director) and other expatriate Hungarians, London Films produced some of Britain's finest films (even if they weren't all commercial successes). Korda's willingness to experiment and be daring allowed the flowering of such talents as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and gave early breaks to people such as Laurence Olivier, David Lean and Carol Reed. Korda sold his library to television in the 1950s, thus allowing London Films' famous logo of Big Ben to become familiar to a new generation of film enthusiasts.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Writer
David O. Selznick was a son of the silent movie producer Lewis J. Selznick. David studied at Columbia University until his father lost his fortune in the 1920s. David started work as an MGM script reader, shortly followed by becoming an assistant to Harry Rapf. He left MGM to work at Paramount then RKO. He was back at MGM in 1933 after marrying Irene Mayer Selznick the daughter of Louis B. Mayer. In 1936, he finally set up his own production company, Selznick International. Three directors and fifteen scriptwriters later, Gone with the Wind (1939) was released.- Producer
- Writer
Irving Grant Thalberg was born in New York City, to Henrietta (Haymann) and William Thalberg, who were of German Jewish descent. He had a bad heart, having contracted rheumatic fever as a teenager and was plagued with other ailments all of his life. He was quite intelligent with a thirst for knowledge but, convinced that he would never see thirty, he skipped college and became, at 21, a high-level executive at Carl Laemmle's Universal Studios, then the largest motion picture studio in the world.
After hitting a career impasse at Universal (partly as a result of a failed romance with Laemmle's daughter), Thalberg jumped ship and enlisted with the relatively obscure Louis B. Mayer Productions overseeing its typically turgid yet profitable melodramas. While the two men shared a common vision for their company, they approached their responsibilities from radically different angles. Mayer was a macro-manager; like a chess master, he would typically engineer business moves far in advance. Given the opportunity, Mayer could've succeeded as CEO of any multi-national corporation. Thalberg was at heart, all about movies, literally pouring his life into his work, largely leaving the managerial duties of the studio to Mayer. Modest, he disavowed screen credit during his lifetime, decrying any credit that one gives themselves as worthless. This working partnership would keep Louis B. Mayer Productions consistently profitable and would extend into their heydays as masters of MGM but would lead to an acrimonious later relationship.
By 1923 theater mogul Marcus Loew had a big problem. In an effort to secure an adequate number of quality films for his theatrical empire, he had merged Metro Pictures with his latest acquisition, Goldwyn Pictures only to discover his new super-studio had inherited a handful of projects (the Italian-based Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Greed (1924)) that had spun wildly out of control. He soon discovered that his problems were magnified by inheriting an incompetent management team. He instructed his attorney to conduct a headhunting expedition with instructions to investigate Louis B. Mayer Productions --- which Loew had previously visited on one of his trips west. Mayer's east Los Angeles studio actually had few tangible assets --- most of his equipment was rented. Loew ended up paying a pittance for Mayer's company but offered both men (after initially rejecting Thalberg!) huge salaries and even more generous profit participation allowances. Answering to New York-based Loew's Inc., Mayer and Thalberg moved into the then-state-of-the-art Goldwyn lot in Culver City and, with Loew's deep pockets, set about creating the most enviable film studio in Hollywood, quickly eclipsing Thalberg's former employer, Universal. Greed was largely scrapped (Thalberg recognizing director Erich von Stroheim's vision of a 7-hour film was unmarketable, had it extensively edited) and written off after a truncated release, with Ben Hur being called home and re-shot with a new director. Saddled with an unfavorable contract and millions in the red, the film would ultimately benefit the new company from prestige more than net profit, despite drawing huge crowds.
Mayer and Thalberg quickly moved past these inherited nightmares and created their dream studio. From 1925 through the mid-1940s there was MGM and then everyone else. It's roster of stars, directors and technicians were unmatched by any other studio. Indeed, to work for MGM meant that you had reached the top of your profession, whether it was front of or behind the cameras. Under Mayer and Thalberg, the studio refined the mechanics of assembly-line film production --- even their B-pictures would outclass the other major's principal productions (arguably MGM's only weakness was comedy). Their formula for quality made MGM the only major studio to remain profitable throughout the Great Depression (although a lesser studio, Columbia also did so, it achieved "major" studio status after 1934, ironically assisted by loaned out stars from MGM).
Thalberg himself was a workaholic and his health, which was never good, suffered. In his position as production supervisor, Thalberg had no qualms about expensive retakes or even extensively re-working a picture after it had completed principal photography --- one such case was with King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925), where he recognized the modest $200,000 WWI drama was lacking the war itself and could be turned into a true spectacle with a few epic battle scenes added. These few additional shots cost $45,000 and turned the film into MGM's first major home-grown hit (and its biggest hit of the silent era), grossing nearly $5 million. If he micro-managed productions there was no one in Hollywood who did it more effectively. Thalberg fell into a deep depression after the mysterious death of his friend and assistant Paul Bern (the two had worked extensively together on the hit Grand Hotel (1932)) and he demanded a one-year sabbatical. Loew's Inc. head Nicholas Schenck (Marcus Loew had died in late 1926) responded by throwing more money at him --- more than Mayer himself was scheduled to earn for the year, alienating Mayer. This, to his ostensible boss was an insufferable insult, one that would drastically alter their relationship. Thalberg remained on the job but suffered a heart attack following a 1932 Christmas party. Mayer quickly engineered a coup of sorts, recruiting a new inner circle of producers (including David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger) to replace him. Thalberg recuperated in Europe with his wife Norma Shearer and returned to MGM in August, 1933 resuming his somewhat reduced duties as a unit production head. He continued to score hits, supervising The Merry Widow (1934), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), the rousing, definitive version of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and the lavish Marie Antoinette (1938) (released after his death).
Thalberg also sought to rectify the studio's poor record in comedy films, signing the Marx Brothers, who had just been released from their contract at Paramount after string of flops. He felt the brilliant comedy team had been seriously mismanaged and ordered their MGM films to be shot in sequence and after their routines had been well tested on stage. The Thalberg-produced A Night at the Opera (1935) was a big hit but he wasn't infallible, stumbling with the critically well-received production of Romeo and Juliet (1936), which went on the books as a $1 million loss. Over Mayer's objections, he delved into the film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth (1937) but died of pneumonia on September 14, 1936 at age 37. The Good Earth (1937) was released soon afterward, MGM honoring him by providing him his only screen credit (Thalberg had always eschewed a producer's credit on his films).
He was survived by his widow Norma and their two children; Irving, Jr. and Katherine. After his death the Motion Picture Academy created the Irving Thalberg Award, given for excellence in production.- Additional Crew
- Producer
- Actor
Mayer was born Lazar Meir in the Ukraine and grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after his parents fled Russian oppression in 1886. He had a brutal childhood, raised in poverty and suffering physical and emotional abuse from his nearly-illiterate peddler father. In the early 1890s, he changed his name to Louis and fudged his birth date to reflect the more "patriotic" date of July 4, 1885. He moved to Boston in 1904 and struggled as a scrap-metal dealer until he was able to purchase a burlesque house. Although he made large sums by showing films (he made a sizable fortune off The Birth of a Nation (1915)), his early business ventures favored legitimate theater in New England. As his theater empire expanded, he had acquired and refurbished enough small movie theaters that he was able to move his business to Los Angeles and venture into movie production in 1918. Along with Samuel Goldwyn and Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures, he formed a new company called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
Over the next 25 years, MGM was "the Tiffany of the studios," producing more films and movie stars than any other studio in the world. Mayer became the prime creator of the enduring Hollywood of myth, home to stars like Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Jean Harlow. Mayer became the highest-paid man in America, one of the country's most successful horse breeders, a political force and Hollywood's leading spokesman. Both he and MGM reached their peaks at the end of World War II, and Mayer was forced out in 1951. He died of leukemia in 1957.- Producer
- Production Manager
- Additional Crew
With his brothers Harry M. Warner, Albert Warner, and Sam Warner, he founded Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. in 1923. They released the first motion picture with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer (1927) with Al Jolson. In the 1930s they gave employment to a parade of stars, including Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and Paul Muni, as well as James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and a man whose star would eventually rise in the 1940s, Humphrey Bogart. Decades later, the firm's successor, Warner Communications Inc., merged with Time Inc. to become Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media and entertainment company.- Producer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Flora Disney (née Call) and Elias Disney, a Canadian-born farmer and businessperson. He had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Walt moved with his parents to Kansas City at age seven, where he spent the majority of his childhood. At age 16, during World War I, he faked his age to join the American Red Cross. He soon returned home, where he won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. There, he met a fellow animator, Ub Iwerks. The two soon set up their own company. In the early 1920s, they made a series of animated shorts for the Newman theater chain, entitled "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams". Their company soon went bankrupt, however.
The two then went to Hollywood in 1923. They started work on a new series, about a live-action little girl who journeys to a world of animated characters. Entitled the "Alice Comedies", they were distributed by M.J. Winkler (Margaret). Walt was backed up financially only by Winkler and his older brother Roy O. Disney, who remained his business partner for the rest of his life. Hundreds of "Alice Comedies" were produced between 1923 and 1927, before they lost popularity.
Walt then started work on a series around a new animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. This series was successful, but in 1928, Walt discovered that M.J. Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, had stolen the rights to the character away from him. They had also stolen all his animators, except for Ub Iwerks. While taking the train home, Walt started doodling on a piece of paper. The result of these doodles was a mouse named Mickey. With only Walt and Ub to animate, and Walt's wife Lillian Disney (Lilly) and Roy's wife Edna Disney to ink in the animation cells, three Mickey Mouse cartoons were quickly produced. The first two didn't sell, so Walt added synchronized sound to the last one, Steamboat Willie (1928), and it was immediately picked up. With Walt as the voice of Mickey, it premiered to great success. Many more cartoons followed. Walt was now in the big time, but he didn't stop creating new ideas.
In 1929, he created the 'Silly Symphonies', a cartoon series that didn't have a continuous character. They were another success. One of them, Flowers and Trees (1932), was the first cartoon to be produced in color and the first cartoon to win an Oscar; another, Three Little Pigs (1933), was so popular it was often billed above the feature films it accompanied. The Silly Symphonies stopped coming out in 1939, but Mickey and friends, (including Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and plenty more), were still going strong and still very popular.
In 1934, Walt started work on another new idea: a cartoon that ran the length of a feature film. Everyone in Hollywood was calling it "Disney's Folly", but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was anything but, winning critical raves, the adoration of the public, and one big and seven little special Oscars for Walt. Now Walt listed animated features among his ever-growing list of accomplishments. While continuing to produce cartoon shorts, he also started producing more of the animated features. Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) were all successes; not even a flop like Fantasia (1940) and a studio animators' strike in 1941 could stop Disney now.
In the mid 1940s, he began producing "packaged features", essentially a group of shorts put together to run feature length, but by 1950 he was back with animated features that stuck to one story, with Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953). In 1950, he also started producing live-action films, with Treasure Island (1950). These began taking on greater importance throughout the 50s and 60s, but Walt continued to produce animated features, including Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).
In 1955 he opened a theme park in southern California: Disneyland. It was a place where children and their parents could take rides, just explore, and meet the familiar animated characters, all in a clean, safe environment. It was another great success. Walt also became one of the first producers of films to venture into television, with his series The Magical World of Disney (1954) which he began in 1954 to promote his theme park. He also produced The Mickey Mouse Club (1955) and Zorro (1957). To top it all off, Walt came out with the lavish musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964), which mixed live-action with animation. It is considered by many to be his magnum opus. Even after that, Walt continued to forge onward, with plans to build a new theme park and an experimental prototype city in Florida.
He did not live to see the culmination of those plans, however; in 1966, he developed lung cancer brought on by his lifelong chain-smoking. He died of a heart attack following cancer surgery on December 15, 1966 at age 65. But not even his death, it seemed, could stop him. Roy carried on plans to build the Florida theme park, and it premiered in 1971 under the name Walt Disney World. His company continues to flourish, still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still-growing empire started by one man: Walt Disney, who will never be forgotten.- Producer
- Director
- Editor
His parents Henry C. DeMille and Beatrice DeMille were playwrights. His father died when he was 12, and his mother supported the family by opening a school for girls and a theatrical company. Too young to enlist in the Spanish-American War, Cecil followed his brother William C. de Mille to the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, making his stage debut in 1900. For twelve years he was actor/manager of his mother's theatrical company. In 1913, Jesse L. Lasky, Samuel Goldwyn and DeMille formed the Lasky Film Company (which years later evolved into Paramount Pictures), and the next year went west to California and produced the successful six reeler, The Squaw Man (1914), of historical significance as the first feature length film produced in Hollywood. He championed the switch from short to feature-length films and is often credited with making Hollywood the motion picture capital of the world. Rather than putting his money into known stars, he emphasized production values. He also developed stars, notably Gloria Swanson. He produced and directed 70 films and was involved in many more. Many of his films were romantic sexual comedies (he is supposed to have believed that Americans were curious only about money and sex). His best-known were biblical/religious epics: Joan the Woman (1916), The Ten Commandments (1923), The King of Kings (1927), The Sign of the Cross (1932), The Crusades (1935), Samson and Delilah (1949), and The Ten Commandments (1956). From 1936 to 1945 he hosted and directed the hour-long "Lux Radio Theatre", which brought the actors and stories of many movies to the airwaves and further established him as the symbol of Hollywood. He appeared as himself in the classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) with his former star Gloria Swanson as the fictitious disturbed former silent film actress Norma Desmond. His niece Agnes de Mille was the acclaimed choreographer of both the original Broadway production and film version of Oklahoma! (1955).