Movie Moguls

1. Carl Laemmle

Frankenstein

The roots of Universal Pictures can rightfully be traced back to 1906 when Carl Laemmle returned home to Chicago after a stint as a bookkeeper in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and opened up a chain of nickelodeons. This in turn led to the ambitious 39-year-old organizing a film exchange network he boldly ...

2. Darryl F. Zanuck

Producer | The Longest Day

One of the kingpins of Hollywood's studio system, Zanuck was the offspring of the ill-fated marriage of the alcoholic night clerk in Wahoo, Nebraska's only hotel and the hotel owner's daughter. Both parents had abandoned him by the time he was 13. At 15, he joined the U.S. Army, and he fought in ...

3. Louis B. Mayer

Producer | The Great Secret

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 ...

4. Jesse L. Lasky

Producer | The Dictator

Lasky, one of the first pioneers of the Hollywood film industry and its first genuine 'mogul', was not only a consummate showman and entrepreneur, but a jack-of-all-trades. Born in San Francisco in September 1880, the son of a shoe salesman, he attended high school in San Jose and held down his ...

5. Adolph Zukor

Sullivan's Travels

Adolph Zukor was a poor Hungarian immigrant when he arrived in the United States in 1889. He tried his hand in the fur trade (starting as a sweeper for $2 a week pay) and proved his entrepreneurial acumen by steady advancement, eventually setting up successful businesses in New York and Chicago. By...

6. Samuel Goldwyn

Producer | The Best Years of Our Lives

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 ...

7. Harry Cohn

It Happened One Night

He was crude, uneducated, foul and, even on his best behavior, abrasive. No major studio executive of the so-called "Golden Age" was more loathed (although at times the dictatorial Samuel Goldwyn and the hard-nosed Jack L. Warner came close) than Harry Cohn.

Born in the middle of 5 children to ...

8. David Sarnoff

Actor | Susan and God

David Sarnoff was one of the giants of 20th Century mass media as the head of Radio Corp. of America (RCA) and the National Broadcasting System (MBC). Sarnoff, who was of Jewish descent, was born on February 27, 1891 in Belarus in the old Russian Empire and emigrated with his family to the United ...

9. David O. Selznick

Producer | Gone with the Wind

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...

10. Howard Hughes

Scarface

Billionaire businessman, film producer, film director, and aviator, born in Humble, Texas just north of Houston. He studied at two prestigious institutions of higher learning: Rice University in Houston and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Inherited his father's machine ...

11. Herbert J. Yates

The Quiet Man

Herbert J. Yates, the cigar-chomping force behind Republic Pictures, spent his early adulthood as a salesman for the American Tobacco Co. (and later, at age 23, for Liggett & Meyers as an account executive). At the beginning of World War I, Yates saw an opportunity to apply his hard-nosed business ...

12. Spyros P. Skouras

Self | We, the People

Spyros Panagiotis Skouras was born on 28 March, 1893 at Skourahorian, Greece, the son of a sheepherder. Originally committed to studying for the priesthood, Skouras decided to emigrate to the United States with his two brothers, eventually settling in St Louis, Missouri. While working as a busboy ...

13. Barney Balaban

Barney Balaban was born in 1887. He was a producer. He died in 1971.

14. Harry M. Warner

Producer | The Lost City

Harry M. Warner was born on December 12, 1881 in Krasnoshiltz, Russian Empire. He was a producer, known for The Lost City (1920), My Four Years in Germany (1918) and Cleaning Up (1920). He was married to Rea Ellen Levinson. He died on July 25, 1958 in Hollywood, California, USA.

15. Joseph M. Schenck

Sherlock Jr.

People liked Joseph M. Schenck. Anyone who knew both him and his brother Nicholas Schenck would comment on how different they were. He came to New York in 1893 and, with his younger brother, built a drugstore business. They risked some profits and made more money in amusement parks. Marcus Loew ...

16. Jack L. Warner

Producer | My Fair Lady

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, ...

17. Jack Cohn

Producer | The Sideshow

Arguably there wouldn't have been a Columbia Pictures without him. Jacob (Jack) Cohn was born into an impoverished immigrant family that eventually numbered four children. Hollywood history may credit his younger brother Harry Cohn for a begrudging amount of greatness but he not only followed in ...

18. Hal Roach

Producer | One Million B.C.

Hal Roach was born in 1892 in Elmira, New York. After working as a mule skinner, wrangler and gold prospector, among other things, he wound up in Hollywood and began picking up jobs as an extra in comedies, where he met comedian Harold Lloyd in 1913 in San Diego. By all accounts, including his own,...

19. Edward L. Alperson

Producer | Irma la Douce

Edward R. Alperson was an ambitious 39-year old manager of a film exchange when he decided to organize a new studio he called Grand National in 1936. The company headquartered in New York City with the First Division Picture Exchange as it's distribution arm and received a tremendous boost when ...

20. W. Ray Johnston

Producer | Scotty of the Scouts

W. Ray Johnston had years of silent film production experience (at Florida's Thanhouser Company and Syndicate Pictures) behind him when he became an independent producer, founding Big Productions Corp. in 1924 and, later, Rayart. These companies paved the way for his entry into sound pictures at ...

21. Steve Broidy

Producer | Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw

Steve Broidy (born Samuel Broidy) was born in Malden, Massachusetts, and attended Boston University. His entrance into the film business was as a salesman for an independent company in 1925, and he moved to Universal Pictures in 1926 and then Warner Bros. in 1931. He was hired by Monogram Pictures ...

22. Ben Judell

Producer | Hitler--Dead or Alive

Ben Judell was a man with a vision; he holds an important position in Hollywood history, but sadly very few people know his name. Judell's entire career was spent in movies, primarily as manager of the Mutual Film Exchanges (one-time producer of Charles Chaplin's shorts) and became an independent ...

23. O. Henry Briggs

Served as President of Producers Releasing Corp., a "B" production/distribution company formed in 1940.

24. A.W. Hackel

Producer | Borrowed Hero

A.W. Hackel was born on December 18, 1882 in Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a producer, known for Borrowed Hero (1941), Phantom Killer (1942) and Murder by Invitation (1941). He was married to Beckie Samelson. He died on October 22, 1959 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

25. Maurice Conn

Producer | Dragnet

During the 1930's, a number of low budget film companies proliferated in Hollywood known collectively as Poverty Row. One of their more productive and ambitious residents was young Maurice H. Conn who had served his apprenticeship at another one of the 'minors', Mascot Pictures, as assistant to its...

26. Robert L. Lippert

Producer | Last of the Wild Horses

Robert L. Lippert, the son of a hardware store owner in Alameda, Califorinia, was born there shortly after the turn of this century. Having little interest in his father's business, young Lippert became enthralled with the new fascination of moving pictures. He began working odd jobs in the local ...

27. James H. Nicholson

Producer | Panic in Year Zero!

James H. Nicholson was a longtime theater owner and exhibitor and worked as a promo man for Realart Pictures prior to 1954, when he founded American Releasing Corp., Two years later, he decided he wanted to expand globally and, with lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff, formed American International Pictures. ...

28. Samuel Z. Arkoff

Dressed to Kill

By the early 1950s, future movie mogul Samuel Z. Arkoff was a brash 30-ish lawyer scratching out a living by representing his in-laws and the Hollywood fringe, which included many of now infamous director/angora-clad transvestite Edward D. Wood Jr.'s social circle. As a shark, Arkoff was physically...

29. Walter Wanger

Producer | Cleopatra

A graduate of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, Walter Wanger was among the more literate and socially conscious American film producers of his time. At the peak of his career, his salary was exceeded only by that of Louis B. Mayer at MGM. Wanger had served in the air force on the Italian front ...

30. Jerry Wald

Producer | Key Largo

The son of a dry goods salesman, Jerry Wald was the go-getting Hollywood writer-producer of popular imagination: charismatic, ambitious, shrewd, frequently brilliant, and filled with a nervous energy driving him from one project to another. An avid reader, with an innate sense of literary judgement...

31. Ray Stark

Producer | Annie

Soon after World War II he started selling Red Ryder radio scripts written by his Shakespeare professor at Rutgers university. He was soon handling literary talent such as Raymond Chandler and Ben Hecht. He later joined Famous Artists Agency representing Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Richard Burton ...

32. J. Arthur Rank

Great Expectations

Lord Rank, known professionally as J. Arthur Rank was the millionaire flour miller and devout Methodist who got into films to spread the gospel. When some early films that he was involved with didn't get an exceptionally good circulation he realized that control of cinemas was the key to success. ...

33. Arthur Krim

Producer | Montecarlo

Arthur Krim was born on April 4, 1910 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer, known for The Montecarlo Story (1956), Playhouse 90 (1956) and 47th Annual Academy Awards (1975). He was married to Mathilde Krim. He died on September 21, 1994 in New York City, New York, USA.

34. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

35. Mary Pickford

Actress | Coquette

Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...

36. D.W. Griffith

Director | The Birth of a Nation

David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth-century literature that were to eventually shape his movies. In 1897 ...

37. Douglas Fairbanks

Actor | The Thief of Bagdad

Douglas Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, to Ella Adelaide (nee Marsh) and Hezekiah Charles Ullman, an attorney and native of Pennsylvania, who was a captain for the Union forces during the Civil War. Fairbanks' paternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants, ...

38. Alexander Korda

Director | The Private Life of Don Juan

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 ...

39. Ilya Lopert

Producer | Summertime

Ilya Lopert was a producer, known for Summertime (1955) and No Greater Love (1943). He died on February 27, 1971.

40. Walt Disney

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

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 ...

41. Roy O. Disney

Self | Hollywood: City of Celluloid

Roy O. Disney was an American businessman, becoming the partner and co-founder, along with his younger brother Walt Disney, of Walt Disney Productions, since renamed The Walt Disney Company.

While Walt was the creative man, Roy was the one who made sure the company was financially stable. Roy and ...

42. Arthur Freed

Producer | An American in Paris

Producer, songwriter and author, brother to Ralph Freed, Walter and Ruth Freed. He was educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy, and became associated with Gus Edwards musical acts. He performed in vaudeville with Louis Silvers, with whom he wrote revues for New York restaurants. During World War I,...

43. Joe Pasternak

Producer | Peter

The son of an out-of-work bookkeeper, Pasternak arrived in the U.S. from Hungary in 1921. After working in a belt factory in Philadelphia, he moved to New York where he plucked chickens and worked in a cafeteria. Becoming increasingly infatuated with the film business, it didn't take him long to ...

44. Irving Thalberg

Producer | The Unknown

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 ...

45. Sidney Franklin

Director | The Good Earth

Sidney Franklin was involved in amateur filmmaking while still at school. With his brother Chester M. Franklin, he wrote, directed and edited a short film, The Baby (1915), at a cost of $400. Somehow it attracted the interest of D.W. Griffith, who decided to put the brothers to work making ...

46. William Goetz

Producer | Sayonara

William Goetz, a producer and studio boss who revolutionized the industry with the development of the profit participation deal, was born on 3/24/1903 in Philadelphia, PA, to ship's purser Theodore Goetz and his wife Fanny. William was the youngest in a brood of eight children (six boys and two ...

47. Bryan Foy

Producer | I Was a Communist for the F.B.I.

Bryan Foy started in showbiz as a vaudevillian, touring nationally for ten years as one of the 'Seven Little Foys' (the oldest). He left the act in 1918 to embark on a solo career in Hollywood, at first devising gags for Buster Keaton then filming two-reelers at Fox. In 1927, he began his long ...

48. Trem Carr

Producer | The Midnight Watch

Until the advent of television in the late 1940's there were two distinct Hollywoods. Populated on one extreme were the major studios (many of which owned their own theater chains) with the glamor made possible with million dollar film budgets. On the other extreme, centered along Gower Street off ...

49. Sam Katzman

Producer | Amateur Crook

New York-born Sam Katzman entered the film industry as a prop boy at age 13, and worked his way up the ladder, learning virtually every facet of film production before becoming a producer himself. Starting out producing action/adventure serials (where he got the nickname "Jungle Sam"), Katzman's ...

50. William LeBaron

Producer | It's the Old Army Game

Producer, songwriter, composer and author, educated at the University of Chicago and New York University. He wrote a number of Broadway stage scores and libretti, and worked as the managing editor of Cosmopolitan magazine between 1918 and 1919, then was the director general of Cosmopolitan ...

51. Merian C. Cooper

Writer | King Kong

In 1920, Merian C. Cooper was a member of volunteer of the American Kosciuszko Squadron that supported the Polish army in the war with Soviet Russia, where he met best friend and producing partner Ernest B. Schoedsack. On 26 July 1920, his plane was shot down, and he spent nearly nine months in the...

52. Sidney R. Kent

Writer | Manhandled

Sidney R. Kent was born on July 30, 1885 in Marysville, Kansas, USA. Sidney R. is known for Manhandled (1924). Sidney R. was previously married to Lillian Edith White and Mabelle Evelyn Eaves.

53. Walter Mirisch

Producer | In the Heat of the Night

Walter Mirisch and brothers Marvin Mirisch and Harold Mirisch were one of the most successful producing teams in Hollywood history. Their Mirisch Company produced such diverse hits as Some Like It Hot (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink ...

54. Winfield R. Sheehan

Producer | Marie Galante

Winfield R. Sheehan was born on September 24, 1883 in Buffalo, New York, USA. Winfield R. was a producer and writer, known for Marie Galante (1934), Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) and Now I'll Tell (1934). Winfield R. was married to Maria Jeritza and Kay Laurel. Winfield R. died on July 25, 1945 in ...

55. Pat Powers

Producer | For the Good of All

Pat Powers was born on October 8, 1869 in Waterford, Ireland as Patrick A. Powers. He is known for his work on The Galloping Cowboy (1926), For the Good of All (1912) and A Frozen Ape (1910). He worked on Steamboat Willie (1928), starring Mickey Mouse as the lead role. He died on July 30, 1948 in ...

56. Sam Spiegel

Producer | Lawrence of Arabia

Born in Germany he went to America some time before the second World War and spent a year in Hollywood reading foreign scripts after which he returned to Berlin where he set up his own company to organise the remaking of foreign films into German language versions. One he handled was 'All Quiet on ...