Darryl F. Zanuck

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Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck 1964.jpg
Darryl F. Zanuck, 1964
BornDarryl Francis Zanuck
September 5, 1902
Wahoo, Nebraska, U.S.
DiedDecember 22, 1979 (aged 77)
Palm Springs, California, U.S.
Cause of deathJaw cancer
Resting placeWestwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Other namesGregory Rogers[1]
Melville Crossman[1]
Mark Canfield[1]
Years active1922–70
Spouse(s)Virginia Fox (1924–79; his death)
ChildrenDarrylin Zanuck Jacks Pineda Carranza (1931– )
Susan Zanuck Hakim Savineau (1933–1980)
Richard D. Zanuck (1934–2012)
Darryl Francis Zanuck (September 5, 1902 – December 22, 1979) was an American film producer and studio executive; he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors (the length of his career was rivaled only by that of Adolph Zukor).[citation needed] He earned three Academy Awards during his tenure.

Early life[edit]

Zanuck was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Louise (née Torpin) and Frank Zanuck, who owned and operated a hotel in Wahoo.[2] Zanuck was of part Swiss descent[2] and was raised a Protestant.[3] At age six, Zanuck and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where the better climate could improve her poor health. At age eight, he found his first movie job as an extra, but his disapproving father recalled him to Nebraska.[citation needed] In 1918, despite being sixteen, he deceived a recruiter, joined the United States Army, and served in France with the Nebraska National Guard.
Upon returning to the US, he worked in many part-time jobs while seeking work as a writer. He found work producing movie plots, and sold his first story in 1922 to William Russell and his second to Irving Thalberg. Screenwriter Frederica Sagor Maas, story editor at Universal Pictures' New York office, stated that one of the stories Zanuck sent out to movie studios around this time was completely plagiarized from another author's work.[4]
Zanuck then worked for Mack Sennett and FBO (where he wrote the serials The Telephone Girl and The Leather Pushers) and took that experience to Warner Brothers, where he wrote stories for Rin Tin Tin and under a number of pseudonyms wrote over forty scripts from 1924 to 1929, including Red Hot Tires (1925) and Old San Francisco (1927). He moved into management in 1929, and became head of production in 1931.[citation needed]
Zanuck was also a mason.[citation needed]

Studio head[edit]


Darryl F. Zanuck at the Academy Awards celebration
In 1933, Zanuck left Warners over a salary dispute with studio head Jack L. Warner. A few days later, he partnered with Joseph Schenck to found 20th Century Pictures, Inc. with financial help from Joseph's brother Nicholas Schenck and Louis B. Mayer, President and Studio head of Loew's, Inc and its subsidiary Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, along with William Goetz and Raymond Griffith. 20th Century released its material through United Artists. During that short time (1933–1935), 20th Century became the most successful independent movie studio of its time, breaking box-office records with 18 of its 19 films, all in profitability, including Clive of India, Les Miserables and The House of Rothschild. After a dispute with United Artists over stock ownership, Schenck and Zanuck negotiated and bought out the bankrupt Fox studios in 1935 to form Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.[5] Zanuck was Vice President of Production of this new studio and took an interventionist approach, closely involving himself in film editing and producing. Like the other heads of Hollywood studios, during World War II he was commissioned as a Colonel in the Army Signal Corps, holding command at Algiers. He returned to Twentieth Century-Fox in 1944.[citation needed]
In 1956, he withdrew from the studio and left his wife, Virginia Fox, to move to Europe and concentrate on independent producing. Many of his later films were designed, in part, to promote the careers of his successive girlfriends, Bella Darvi, Irina Demick, and Geneviève Gilles, and several movies he produced featured his girlfriend of the moment, including the French singer Juliette Gréco.[6]
He returned to control Fox in 1962, replacing Spyros Skouras, in a confrontation over the release of Zanuck's production of The Longest Day as the studio struggled to finish the difficult production of Cleopatra (1963). He made his son, Richard D. Zanuck, head of production. He later became involved in a power struggle with the board and his son, circa 1969. In May 1971, Zanuck was forced from "his" studio.[citation needed]

Death[edit]


Darryl Zanuck's grave at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
A long-time cigar smoker,[7] he died of jaw cancer at the age of 77, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.[8]

Legacy[edit]

Haunted by his part in creating the "racist" Ham and Eggs at the Front (1927), Zanuck began tackling serious issues, breaking new ground by producing some of Hollywood's most important and controversial films. Long before it was fashionable to do so, Zanuck addressed issues such as racism (Pinky), anti-Semitism (Gentleman's Agreement), poverty (The Grapes of Wrath, Tobacco Road), unfair unionization and destruction of the environment (How Green Was My Valley), and institutionalised mistreatment of the mentally ill (The Snake Pit). After The Snake Pit was released, thirteen states changed their laws. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Zanuck earned three Thalberg Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; after Zanuck's third win, the rules were changed to limit one Thalberg Award to one person. 20th Century Fox, the studio he co-founded and ran successfully for so many years, screens movies in its Darryl F. Zanuck Theater. Zanuck's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6336 Hollywood Blvd.

Academy Awards[edit]

YearResultCategoryFilm
1929–30NominatedOutstanding ProductionDisraeli
1932–33NominatedOutstanding Production42nd Street
1934NominatedOutstanding ProductionThe House of Rothschild
1935NominatedOutstanding ProductionLes Misérables
1937NominatedOutstanding ProductionIn Old Chicago
1938NominatedOutstanding ProductionAlexander's Ragtime Band
1940NominatedOutstanding ProductionThe Grapes of Wrath
1941WonOutstanding Motion PictureHow Green Was My Valley
1944NominatedOutstanding Motion PictureWilson
1946NominatedOutstanding Motion PictureThe Razor's Edge
1947WonOutstanding Motion PictureGentleman's Agreement
1949NominatedOutstanding Motion PictureTwelve O'Clock High
1950WonOutstanding Motion PictureAll About Eve
1956NominatedBest PictureThe King and I ("Darryl F. Zanuck presents" is seen in the opening credits)
1962NominatedBest PictureThe Longest Day

Select Filmography[edit]

Produced by Zanuck[edit]

Written by Zanuck[edit]

Zanuck in Documentaries; Television appearances[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Per IMDb.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b http://www.wahooschools.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/Wahoo's%20Famous%20Sons%3E%3EDarryl%20Zanuck
  3. Jump up ^ Gussow, Mel (September 1, 2002). "FILM; Darryl F. Zanuck, Action Hero of the Studio Era". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  4. Jump up ^ Maas, Frederica Sagor (1999). The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. pp. 44–45. ISBN 0-8131-2122-1.
  5. Jump up ^ Ilias Chrissochoidis (ed.), Spyros P. Skouras, Memoirs (1893–1953) (Stanford, 2013), 104.
  6. Jump up ^ John Murray (2008). Charlotte Mosley, ed. In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh-Fermor.
  7. Jump up ^ Hift, Fred (September 1, 1994). "The Longest Day". Cigar Aficionado. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
  8. Jump up ^ Darryl Francis Zanuck at Find a Grave

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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