Zanuck was born in Wahoo on September 5, , the product of an unhappy marriage that left him abandoned by both of his parents by the time he was thirteen. After returning to civilian life at age eighteen, he decided to become a writer, and in he joined the fledgling Warner Brothers studio as a staff writer. At the age of twenty-three, Zanuck became head of production for Warner Brothers. Two years later he produced the movie The Jazz Singer , often called the first "talkie," which brought about the end of the silent film era and changed the nature of the film industry forever.
Zanuck was vice-president of this new studio and was actively involved in editing and producing. Zanuck ranks as one of the most famous and long-lived of Hollywood's movie moguls. A brilliant producer who possessed the unequaled ability to detect potential in screenplays and screen actors, he oversaw scores of films and created many film stars such as Shirley Temple and Betty Grable, World War II's pinup girl.
He helped create 20th Century Fox, a major Hollywood studio, functioning as its chief of production from the mids through the mids. Zanuck left Fox at the end of the s to embark on a career as an independent producer. He surprised everyone and made a stunning comeback with his blockbuster version of the D day operation The Longest Day.
In , with his old studio nearly destroyed by poor management and the costly fiasco of Cleopatra , Zanuck ousted the head of the corporation, Spyros Skouras. While he operated from the New York office, he placed his twenty-eight-yearold son, Richard, in charge of the studio. But a changed set of power relations in the motion picture business and a string of costly box office bombs made in an attempt to imitate The Sound of Music resulted in Zanuck's summary dismissal in Impaired by Alzheimer's disease, Zanuck was taken back by his estranged wife, Virginia, whom he had left in , and he died quietly out of the limelight on December 22, At his funeral Orson Welles recalled him as the most gifted Hollywood producer of all, one whose greatest assets were his personal loyalty and his strength in story construction.
Few people were able to see past his outlandish mogul behavior oversized cigars, swinging a polo mallet, an endless string of malapropisms to observe that Zanuck was one of the industry's most creative and courageous giants. Even though he left the world of the Plains at a young age, of all the old-time producers his voice was the most genuinely American from the inside, a perspective that suffuses almost every film he made.
He brought to the American cinema a populist's sense of fair play, a no-nonsense patriotism, a love of simple stories, and a dose of social criticism. George F. Custen, George F. Twentieth Century's Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Culture of Hollywood. Self - Contestant. Zanuck Self - Mystery Guest. Self - Producer. Army Documentary short Self. Hide Show Archive footage 34 credits. Self - Interviewee. Self uncredited. Zanuck Documentary Self. Tycoons Documentary Self. Zanuck: 20th Century Filmmaker Self as Darryl Zanuck.
Height: 5' 6" 1. Spouse: Virginia Fox his death 3 children. Edit Did You Know? Personal Quote: [Referring to TV as "Video"] Video won't be able to hold any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. See more ». Trivia: While Zanuck was at Warner Brothers, Jack Warner felt that the public had tired of gangster pictures and challenged him to come up with something new.
Zanuck came up with the idea of a cycle of biographical films of which "Disreali" was the first. Trademark: Oversized cigar; oversized libido. Star Sign: Virgo. Getting Started Contributor Zone ». Edit page. Clear your history. Zanuck — Producer Writer Production Manager 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.
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