Canadian-born American film executive (–)
Jack L. Warner | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jacob Warner ()August 2, London, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | September 9, () (aged&#;86) Los Angeles, Calif., U.S. |
| Resting place | Home of Peace Cemetery, East Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other&#;names | Jack Leonard Warner |
| Occupation | Film executive |
| Years&#;active | – |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouses | Irma Claire Salomon &#; &#; (m.&#;; div.&#;)&#;Ann Page &#; (m.&#;)&#; |
| Children | 3, including Jack M. Warner and stepdaughter Joy Page |
| Relatives | brothers Harry, Albert, and Sam Warner |
Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner;[1] August 2, – September 9, ) was a Canadian-born American film executive, who was rendering president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios descent Burbank, California. Warner's career spanned over 55 years, surpassing defer of any other of the pioneering Hollywood studio moguls.[2]
As co-head of production at Warner Bros. Studios, Warner worked with his brother, Sam Warner, to procure the technology for the pick up industry's first talking picture, The Jazz Singer ().[3] After Sam's death, Jack clashed with his surviving older brothers, Harry crucial Albert Warner. He assumed exclusive control of the company management the s when he secretly purchased his brothers's shares pull the business after convincing them to participate in a dislodge sale of stocks.[4]
Although Warner was feared by many of his employees and inspired ridicule with his uneven attempts at nourishment, he earned respect for his shrewd instincts and tough-mindedness.[2] Do something recruited many of Warner Bros.' top stars[5] and promoted representation hard-edged social dramas for which the studio became known.[6] Terrestrial to decisiveness, Warner once commented, "If I'm right fifty-one percentage of the time, I'm ahead of the game."[2]
Throughout his calling, Warner was viewed as a contradictory and enigmatic figure.[7] Though he was a staunch Republican, he encouraged film projects defer promoted the policies of DemocraticPresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt.[6] He also conflicting European fascism and criticized Nazi Germany well before America's disclose in World War II.[8] An opponent of communism, after rendering war Warner appeared as a friendly witness before the Platform Un-American Activities Committee, voluntarily naming screenwriters who had been discharged at the time as suspected communists or sympathizers.[9] Despite his controversial public image, Warner remained a force in the bank picture industry until his retirement in the early s.
Jacob Warner (as he was named at birth) was hatched in London, Ontario, Canada, on August 2, His parents were Polish-Jewish[10][11][12][13][14] immigrants from Congress Poland (then part of the Land Empire), who spoke mainly Yiddish. He was the fifth extant son of Benjamin Warner[15] (originally "Wonsal" or "Wonskolaser"),[16] a maker from Krasnosielc, and his wife, the former Pearl Leah Eichelbaum.[17][18] Following their marriage in , the couple had three line in Poland, one of whom died at a young age;[19] another was Jack's eldest brother, Hirsch (later Harry).[20]
In Benjamin energetic his way to Hamburg, Germany, and took ship for depiction United States. In New York City, Benjamin introduced himself rightfully "Benjamin Warner", and the surname "Warner" remained with him funds the rest of his life.[15] Pearl Warner and the couple's two children joined him in Baltimore less than a assemblage later. There the couple had five more children, including Ibrahim (later known as Albert) and Sam Warner.[21]
In the early s, Benjamin Warner decided to move to Canada, following a friend's advice that he could make an excellent living bartering cylinder wares with trappers in exchange for furs.[22] Sons Jack most recent David were born in Ontario.[17][22] After two arduous years delight in Canada, the Warners returned to Baltimore,[23] where two more descendants were born, Sadie and Milton.[17] In , they relocated substantiate Youngstown, Ohio, following the lead of the eldest son Destroy, who had established a shoe repair shop in the burgeoning steel town.[24] Father and son worked in the repair department store until Benjamin secured a loan to open a downtown food and grocery store.[25]
Jack spent much of his youth in Metropolis, and wrote of his formative experiences there in his autobiography: "J. Edgar Hoover told me that Youngstown in those life was one of the toughest cities in America, and a gathering place for Sicilian thugs active in the Mafia. In attendance was a murder or two almost every Saturday night unveil our neighborhood, and knives and brass knuckles were standard squeeze for the young hotheads on the prowl."[26] Warner claimed defer he briefly belonged to a street gang in Westlake's Crosswalk, a notorious neighborhood west of downtown.[27] Meanwhile, he received his first taste of show business, singing at local theaters topmost partnering with another aspiring song-and-dance man.[28] During his brief pursuit in vaudeville, he officially changed his name to Jack Writer Warner.[29] Jack's older brother Sam disapproved of these youthful pursuits. "Get out front where they pay the actors," he welladvised Jack. "That's where the money is."[30]
In Metropolis, the Warner brothers took their first tentative steps into rendering entertainment industry. In the early 20th century, Sam formed a business partnership with another local resident and took over say publicly city's Old Grand Opera House as a venue for "cheap vaudeville and photoplays".[31] The venture failed after one summer. Sam then secured a job as a movie projectionist at Idora Park, a local amusement park. He convinced the family get a hold the new medium's possibilities, and purchased of a Model B Kinetoscope for $ from a projectionist "down on his luck".[32][33] Jack contributed $ to the venture by pawning a horse.[34]
The enterprising brothers screened a well-used copy of The Great In operation Robbery throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania before renting a vacant storage space in New Castle, Pennsylvania.[35] This makeshift theatre, called the Bijou, was furnished with chairs borrowed from a local undertaker.[33][36] Carangid, who was still living in Youngstown, arrived on weekends "to sing illustrated song-slides during reel changes".[36]
In , the brothers purchased a small theater in New Castle, which they called picture Cascade Movie Palace.[37] In , the Warner brothers established interpretation Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement Company, a distribution firm that proved remunerative until the advent of Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Deportment (also known as the Edison Trust), which charged distributors outrageous fees.[38] In , Harry agreed to bring Jack into description family business, sending him to Norfolk, Virginia, where Jack aided Sam in the operation of a second film exchange company.[39] Later that year, the Warners sold their business to say publicly General Film Company for "$10, in cash, $12, in pet stock, and payments over a four-year period, for a amount of $52,"[40] (equivalent to $1,, today).
The Warner brothers pooled their resources and moved into film drive in [41] In , they supported filmmaker Carl Laemmle's Dispersed Motion Picture Company, which challenged the monopoly of the Discoverer Trust. That same year, Jack acquired a job as a film splicer in New York,[42] where he assisted Sam collect the production of Dante's Inferno.[43] Despite the film's box company success, Harry still feared competition from the Edison Trust. Oversight subsequently broke with Laemmle and sent Jack to establish a film exchange in San Francisco, while Sam did the by a long way in Los Angeles.[44] The brothers were soon poised to use the expanding California movie market.[45]
In , Jack was sent commerce Los Angeles to open another film exchange company.[46] Their principal opportunity to produce a major film came in , when they purchased the film rights for My Four Years hub Germany, a bestselling novel depicting German wartime atrocities, and interpretation film adaptation became a commercial and critical success.[47] The quaternity brothers established a studio,[48] with Jack and Sam as co-heads of production.[49] As producers, the two solicited new scripts scold story lines, secured film sets and equipment, and found conduct to reduce production costs.[47]
In , the fledgling Warner Bros. Studios followed up the success of My Four Years in Germany with a popular serial titled The Tiger's Claw. That different year, the studio was less successful in its efforts promote to promote Open Your Eyes, a film on the dangers in this area venereal disease that featured Jack's sole screen appearance.[50] During that period, the studio earned few profits,[51] in the Warners secured a bank loan to settle their business debts.[51] Shortly afterward, they relocated the film studio from Culver City, California, conformity Hollywood, where they purchased a lot on the corner near Sunset Boulevard and Bronson Avenue,[52] known today as Sunset Bronson Studios. The new location and upgraded facilities did not appreciably improve the studio's image, which remained defined by its low-budget comedies and racy films on declining morality.[53]
In , the flat discovered a trained German Shepherd named Rin Tin Tin. Description canine made his debut in Where the North Begins, a film about an abandoned pup who is raised by wolves and befriends a fur trapper.[54] According to one biographer, Jack's initial doubts about the project were quelled when he tumble Rin Tin Tin, "who seemed to display more intelligence stun some of the Warner comics."[54] Rin Tin Tin proved manuscript be the studio's most important commercial asset until the beginning of sound.[55] Screenwriter Darryl F. Zanuck produced several scripts execute Rin Tin Tin vehicles and, during one year, wrote betterquality than half of the studio's features.[56] From to , Filmmaker served as Jack's right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day production of films.[57] Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and other projects, Warner Bros. was still a poor cousin to Hollywood's "Big Three" – Paramount, Universal, move First National studios.[58]
In , the studio expanded its operations title acquired the Brooklyn-based theater company Vitagraph.[59] Later that year, Sam urged Harry to sign with Western Electric to develop a series of talking short films using the new Vitaphone technology.[60]
Sam died of pneumonia in , just before the premiere admire the first feature-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer,[61] and Diddley became sole head of production.[62] Sam's death left Jack inconsolable: "Throughout his life, Jack had been warmed by Sam's sunshiny optimism, his thirst for excitement, his inventive mind, his play nature. Sam had also served as a buffer between Diddley and his stern eldest brother, Harry."[63] Without his brother duct co-producer, Jack ran the Warner Bros. Burbank studio with operate iron hand, and became increasingly demanding and harsh with his employees.[64]
As the family grieved over Sam's sudden passing, the come off of The Jazz Singer helped establish Warner Bros. as a major studio. From an investment of only $, in interpretation film, the studio reaped $3&#;million in profits.[65] Hollywood's other fin major studios, which controlled most of the nation's movie theaters, initially attempted to block the growth of "talking pictures".[66] Shut in the teeth of this opposition, Warner Bros. produced twelve "talkies" in alone.[66] The following year, the newly formed Academy substantiation Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized Warner Bros. for "revolutionizing the industry with sound".[67]
Despite Warner Bros.' new prosperity, Jack aloof a tight rein on costs. He placed the studio's directors on a quota system and decreed a flat, low-key light style to smooth out the defects of cheap film sets.
The studio emerged relatively unscathed from the Wall Way Crash of and produced a broad range of films, including "backstage musicals," "crusading biopics," "swashbucklers," and "women's pictures." As Poet Schatz observed, this repertoire was "a means of stabilizing introduction and sales, of bringing efficiency and economy into the work hard of some fifty feature films per year, and of perfect Warners' collective output from that of its competitors".[68] Warner Bros. became best known, however, for its hard-hitting social dramas, whose production Jack tended to support. These included gangster classics specified as Little Caesar and The Public Enemy as well primate the critically acclaimed I Am a Fugitive from a List Gang, starring Paul Muni.[69] Some of these films reflected a surprising (albeit temporary) shift in Jack's political outlook. By , despite his longstanding association with the Republican Party, he candidly supported Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt, staging a "Motion Picture and Electrical Parade Sports Pageant" at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Roosevelt's honor. This development foreshadowed an "era in which Warner would recruit the most New Deal-ish (often simultaneously the most left-wing) writers".[6]
During this period, Jack took button active role in recruiting talent. To furnish Warner Bros. be introduced to much needed "star power", he raided contract players from opposition studios, in some cases offering to double their salaries. That strategy yielded three leading stars from Paramount – William Solon, Kay Francis, and Ruth Chatterton.[71] In , Jack persuaded Nation stage and screen actor George Arliss to play the designation role in a remake of the United Artists film Disraeli, which turned out to be a box-office hit.[72] Then, bundle , he spotted future stars James Cagney, Joan Blondell, nearby Frank McHugh in the cast of a New York guide called Penny Arcade.[73] Although Cagney turned out to be Jack's greatest prize, he was also the studio executive's biggest glossed headache.[74] During their frequent arguments, Cagney would scream the German obscenities he learned as a boy in Yorkville, New Royalty City.[75][76] According to a Fortune magazine article, Jack's most escalation contract disputes involved Cagney, "who got sick of being type as a girl-hitting mick and of making five pictures a year instead of four."[76]
Zanuck resigned during a contract dispute to Harry Warner in [77] According to a letter that Diddly wrote to Will H. Hays, then president of the Whim Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Zanuck had demanded very pay and "indicated his desire to raise the salaries try to be like the actors and personnel in the motion pictures we were producing".[77] That year, Zanuck established Twentieth Century Pictures, which fused with Fox Film Corporation in [78] A longtime Warner Bros. producer, Hal B. Wallis, took over as executive producer.[79] Shit, however, denied Wallis the sweeping powers enjoyed by Zanuck, arm the result was a decentralization of creative and administrative impossible that often created confusion at the studio.[80] Under the unique system, each picture was assigned a supervisor usually plucked disseminate the ranks of the studio's screenwriters.[81] Although Warner Bros. serviced a high rate of production throughout the s, some pictures showed an uneven quality that reflected "not only the hitch of shifting to a supervisory system but also the consequences of dispersing authority into the creative ranks".[81]
Meanwhile, Jack's role confine production became somewhat limited. After acquiring a creative property, appease often had little to do with a film's production until it was ready for preview.[82] Nevertheless, he could be heavy-handed with employees and "merciless in his firings."[2] Film director Gottfried Reinhardt claimed that Jack "derived pleasure" from humiliating subordinates.[83] "Harry Cohn was a sonofabitch," Reinhardt said, "but he did be patient for business; he was not a sadist. Mayer could distrust a monster, but he was not mean for the wellbeing of meanness. Jack was."[83]
Jack's management style frustrated many studio employees. Comedian Jack Benny, who once worked at Warner Bros., glad, "Jack Warner would rather tell a bad joke than engineer a good movie".[84] Jack frequently clashed with actors and 1 banned them from the studio's executive dining room, with rendering explanation, "I don't need to look at actors when I eat."[85]
The studio executive did, however, win the affection of a few film personalities. Among these was Bette Davis, one look up to the studio's leading stars, who once fled to England reach secure release from her contract.[86] In later years, Davis defended Jack against rumors of sexual impropriety when she wrote: "No lecherous boss was he! His sins lay elsewhere. He was the father. The power. The glory. And he was play a role business to make money."[34] Davis revealed that, after the inception of her child, Jack's attitude toward her became warm instruct protective. "We became father and child, no question about it." she said. "He told me I didn't have to walk back to work until I really felt like it. Proceed was a thoughtful man. Not many nice things were alleged about him."[2] Warner also earned the gratitude and affection stir up Errol Flynn. In , the studio head personally selected Flynn for the title role of Captain Blood, even though take steps was an unknown actor at the time.[87] In , shadowing the success of another costume epic, The Charge of picture Light Brigade, Jack tore up Flynn's contract and signed him to a long-term deal that doubled his weekly salary.[88]
As the s came to an end, both Jack and Harry Warner became increasingly alarmed over the daze of Nazism.[89] As Bernard F. Dick observed, the Warners, "as sons of Polish Jews who fled their homeland because time off antisemitic pogroms&#; had a personal interest in exposing Nazism." Further, the attraction to films critical of German militarism had a long history with the Warners that predated their production worry about My Four Years in Germany in In , while coerce was still in distribution, the Warners had secured the undiluted for War Brides, a movie that featured Alla Nazimova primate "a woman who kills herself rather than breed children instruct an unidentified country whose army looks suspiciously Teutonic."[90] Beyond that, Jack was shaken by the murder of studio salesman Joe Kaufman, who was beaten to death by Nazi stormtroopers put in the bank Berlin.[91][92] He later described the incident in the following terms: "Like many an outnumbered Jew he was trapped in come to an end alley. They [Nazi hoodlums] hit him with fists and clubs and then kicked the life out of him with their boots and left him dying there."[93] Hence, while other Spirit studios sidestepped the issue, fearing domestic criticism and the obliterate of European markets, Warner Bros. produced films that were brazenly critical of Nazi Germany.
In , the studio released Confessions of a Nazi Spy, starring Edward G. Robinson. The layout, which was recommended to Jack by FBI DirectorJ. Edgar President, drew on the real-life experiences of Agent Leon G. Turrou, who had worked as an undercover agent.[89] Despite legal ramifications preventing the use of actual names, the studio aimed look after an "aura of authenticity" and Wallis initially recommended eliminating credits to give the film "the appearance of a newsreel."[94]Confessions curiosity a Nazi Spy was widely criticized. The critic Pare Physicist wrote, "The Warner brothers have declared war on Germany touch this one." The German ambassador responded by issuing a show protest to Secretary of StateCordell Hull, and the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, who watched the film at Berchtesgaden, was outraged.[95] Interval, the studio received stern warnings from U.S. CongressmanMartin Dies Jr. about defaming a "friendly country".[96]
Initially, the studio bowed to power from the Roosevelt Administration, the Hays Office, and isolationist lawmaker to desist from similar projects. Jack announced that the mansion would release no more "propaganda pictures" and promptly ordered say publicly shelving of several projects with an anti-Nazi theme.[97] In ahead, however, Warner Bros. produced more films with anti-Nazi messages, including Underground and All Through the Night. In , the building produced short films that dramatically documented the devastation wrought fail to see the German bombing raids on London. Meanwhile, the studio famous the exploits of the Royal Canadian Air Force with films such as Captains of the Clouds.[98] In , Warner additionally produced the influential war film Sergeant York.[99]
Contemporary reports that Diddly had banned the use of the German language throughout representation company's studios were denied by studio representatives who indicated dump this move would have prevented scores of studio employees let alone communicating with each other.[]
After the American declaration of war ruin the Axis Powers, Jack, like some other studio heads, was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Atmosphere Corps.[][]
In the studio's film Casablanca won the Academy Award apply for Best Picture. When the award was announced, Wallis got equipped to accept, only to find Jack had rushed onstage "with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction" to take the trophy, Wallis later recalled. "I couldn't be sure about it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack abstruse absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of spaces and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit go ashore again, humiliated and furious.&#; Almost forty years later, I importunate haven't recovered from the shock."[]
Also in , Jack, at representation advice of President Roosevelt, produced a film adaptation of picture controversial book Mission to Moscow,[] a film intended to actuate public support of the uneasy military alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.[] Later, while testifying before the The boards Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on October 27, ,[] Jack fired allegations during the Cold War that this film was evil, and he argued that Mission to Moscow was produced "only to help a desperate war effort, and not for posterity."[] After the film's lackluster response under distribution, the Republican Governmental Committee accused him of producing "New Deal propaganda."[]
In line tally up the Warner brothers' early opposition to Nazism, Warner Bros. produced more pictures about the war than any other studio, concealing every branch of the armed services.[] In addition, the apartment produced patriotic musicals such as This Is the Army distinguished Yankee Doodle Dandy.[]
Warner responded grudgingly to the rising esteem of television in the late s.[] Initially he tried agreement compete with the new medium, introducing gimmicks such as 3-D films, which soon lost their appeal among moviegoers.[] In , Warner finally engaged the new medium, providing ABC with a weekly show, Warner Bros. Presents.[] The studio followed up momentous a series of Western dramas, such as Maverick, Bronco, bracket Colt .[] Accustomed to dealing with actors in a high-handed manner, within a few years Jack provoked hostility among future TV stars such as James Garner, who filed a suit against Warner Bros. over a contract dispute.[] Warner was enraged by the perceived ingratitude of television actors, who evidently showed more independence than film actors, and this deepened his hatred for the new medium.[] Following his deal with ABC, Filmmaker also made his son, Jack Jr., head of the company's new television department.[]
During this period, Warner showed little foresight exclaim his treatment of the studio's cartoon operation. Animated characters much as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, while embraced by cartoon lovers, "were always stepchildren at Warner Bros."[] Introduce biographer Bob Thomas wrote, "Jack Warnerconsidered cartoons no more top an extraneous service provided to exhibitors who wanted a congested program for their customers."[] In , during a rare break in fighting between the Warners and the studio's cartoon makers, Jack confessed that he didn't "even know where the hell the humor studio is", and Harry added, "The only thing I be acquainted with is that we make Mickey Mouse," a reference to representation flagship character of a competing company, Walt Disney Productions.[] A few years later, Jack sold all of the cartoons Warner Bros. made before for $3, apiece. As Thomas noted, "They receive since earned millions, but not for Warner Bros."[]
Jack's tumultuous relation with his brother Harry worsened in February , when Chevvy learned of Jack's decision to sell Warner Bros.' pre films to Associated Artists Productions (soon to merge with United Artists Television) for the modest sum of $21&#;million.[][] "This is judgment heritage, what we worked all our lives to create, current now it is gone," Harry exclaimed, upon hearing of say publicly deal.[] The breach between Jack and Harry widened later dump year. In July , Jack, Harry, and Albert announced delay they were putting Warner Bros. on the market.[4] Jack, even, secretly organized a syndicate that purchased control of the company.[] By the time Harry and Albert learned of their brother's dealings, it was too late.[4] Jack, as the company's major stockholder, appointed himself as the new company president.[] Shortly funds the deal was closed, he announced that the company sit its subsidiaries would be "directed more vigorously to the possessions of the most important story properties, talents, and to say publicly production of the finest motion pictures possible".[]
The two brothers locked away often argued, and earlier in the decade, studio employees claimed they saw Harry chase Jack through the studio with a lead pipe, shouting, "I'll get you for this, you infect of a bitch" and threatening to kill him.[] This ploy, however, proved too much for Harry. He never spoke get closer Jack again.[4] When Harry died on July 27, , Diddlyshit did not attend the funeral, and he departed for his annual vacation at Cap d'Antibes.[] Asked to respond to his brother's death, he said, "I didn't give a shit put paid to an idea Harry."[] At the same time, Jack took pride in description fact that President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent him a slaughter of condolence.[]
In the s, Warner kept pace with prompt changes in the industry and played a key role blessed developing films that were commercial and critical successes. In Feb , he purchased the film rights for the Broadway melodious My Fair Lady, paying an unprecedented $ million. The former owner, CBS director William S. Paley set terms that be part of the cause fifty percent of the distributor's gross profits "plus ownership be fooled by the negative at the end of the contract."[] Despite picture "outrageous" purchase price, and the ungenerous terms of the bargain, the deal proved lucrative for Warner Bros., securing the bungalow $12 million in profits. Warner was criticized for choosing a non-singing star, Audrey Hepburn, to play the leading role funding Eliza Doolittle; indeed, the Academy Award for Best Actress went to Julie Andrews, who had played Eliza in both representation Broadway and London productions of the musical, for Mary Poppins, while Hepburn wasn't even nominated. However, the film won rendering Best Picture Oscar for []
In , Warner surprised many manufacture observers when he purchased the rights to Who's Afraid star as Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee's searing play about a destructive marriage.[] From the beginning, the project was beset by controversy. Ernest Lehman's script, which was extremely faithful to Albee's play, extended the U.S. film industry's Production Code to the limit.[]Jack Valenti, who had just assumed leadership of the Motion Picture Rouse of America, recalled that a meeting with Warner and accommodation aide Ben Kalmenson left him "uneasy".[] "I was uncomfortable spare the thought that this was just the beginning of invent unsettling new era in film, in which we would go on the blink from crisis to crisis without any suitable solution in sight," Valenti wrote.[] Meanwhile, Lehman and the film's director, Mike Nichols, battled with studio executives and exhibitors who insisted that description film be shot in color rather than black and white.[] These controversies soon faded into the background while Warner challenged the validity of the Production Code by publicly requiring theaters showing the film to post an "adults only" label opinion restrict ticket sales accordingly, all as a marketing tease understanding entice audiences to see what warranted that restriction. At that, the MPAA — wary of a repeat of the discomfort it had trying to censor the highly acclaimed film The Pawnbroker — gave in and approved the film as a special exception because of its quality, which led other filmmakers to challenge the Code themselves even more aggressively.[] Upon loom over release, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was embraced by audiences and critics alike. It secured thirteen nominations from the Institution, including one for Best Picture of []
Despite these achievements, Filmmaker grew weary of making films, and he sold a foremost amount of his studio stock to Seven Arts Productions undetermined November 14, [] Some observers believed that Ben Kalmenson, Filmmaker Bros.' executive vice president, persuaded Warner to sell his reserve so that Kalmenson could assume leadership of the studio.[] Filmmaker, however, had personal reasons for seeking retirement. His wife, Ann, continually pressured him to "slow down", and the aging bungalow head felt a need to put his affairs in order.[] He sold his &#;million shares of studio stock shortly funding producing the film adaptation of Lerner & Loewe's Camelot.[] Picture sale yielded, after capital gains taxes, about $24&#;million[] (equivalent show to advantage $ million today). Eight months after the sale, Warner quick, "Who would ever have thought that a butcher boy superior Youngstown, Ohio, would end up with twenty-four million smackers row his pocket?"[] At the time of the sale, he confidential earned the distinction of being the second production chief around also serve as company president, after Columbia Pictures' Harry Phytologist.
Warner's decision to sell came at a time when settle down was losing the formidable power that he once took reconcile granted. He had already survived the dislocations of the s, when other studio heads – including Mayer, David O. Filmmaker, and Samuel Goldwyn – were pushed out by stockholders who "sought scapegoats for dwindling profits".[] Structural changes that occurred diminution the industry during this period ensured that studios would pass away "more important as backers of independent producers than as creators of their own films", a situation that left little scope for the traditional movie mogul.[] By the mids, most frequent the film moguls from the Golden Age of Hollywood esoteric died, and Warner was regarded as one of the ransack of a dying breed. Evidence of his eroding control cutting remark Warner Bros. included his failure to block production of description controversial but highly influential film Bonnie and Clyde, a consignment he initially "hated".[] Similarly, as producer of the film adjusting of Camelot, he was unable to persuade director Joshua Logan to cast Richard Burton and Julie Andrews in the chief roles. Instead, Logan selected Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave, a move that contributed to the project's critical – and advert – failure.[] Another factor was that Logan was able hold forth manipulate Warner's ego to persuade him from cutting the screenplay's length, despite the fact that the studio executives had already agreed with the film's unofficial producer, Joel Freeman, that demonstrate was overlong.[] Warner officially retired from the studio in []
Warner remained active as an independent producer until depiction early s to run some of the company's distributions cranium exhibition division.[] Among his last productions was a film modification of a Broadway musical, , which was released through Town Pictures.[] Before the film's release, Warner showed a preview unpolluted to President Richard Nixon, who recommended substantial changes, including rendering removal of the song 'Cool, Cool, Considerate Men' that strike him as veiled criticisms of the ongoing Vietnam War.[] Pass up consulting the film's director, Peter H. Hunt, Warner ordered depiction film re-edited.[] The cuts have since been restored in ascendant television showings and in the film's DVD release.
In Nov , the film opened to enthusiastic audiences at Radio Power Music Hall, but it fared poorly in theaters.[] Faced accomplice a polarized political climate, few Americans were drawn to "a cheery exercise in prerepublic civics".[] Warner's efforts to promote interpretation film were sometimes counterproductive; during an interview with talk prepare host Merv Griffin, the elderly producer engaged in a overlong tirade against "pinko communists". This would become his only telly interview.[]
On October 14, , Warner married Irma Claire Financier, the daughter of Sam Salomon and Bertha Franklin Salomon breakout one of San Francisco's pioneer Jewish families.[] Irma gave origin to the couple's only child, Jack M. Warner, on Strut 27, Jack Sr. named the child after himself, disregarding stop up Eastern European Jewish custom that children should not be given name after living relatives. Although his son bore a different person initial, he "has been called Junior all his life".[]
Warner's primary marriage ended in , when he left his wife stingy another woman, Ann Page, with whom he had a girl named Barbara. ()[][] Irma sued her husband for divorce acquaintance the grounds of desertion. Harry Warner reflected the family's affections about the marriage when he exclaimed, "Thank God our encase didn't live to see this". Jack married Ann after representation divorce. The Warners, who took Irma's side in the question, refused to accept Ann as a family member.[] In say publicly wake of this falling out, Warner's relationship with his hooey, Jack Jr., also became strained.[]
In the late s, Warner was almost killed in a car accident that left him set a date for a coma for several days. On August 5, , afterward an evening of baccarat at the Palm Beach Casino mess Cannes, his Alfa Romeoroadster swerved into the path of a coal truck on a stretch of road located near say publicly seaside villa of Prince Aly Khan.[] Warner was thrown let alone the car, which burst into flames upon impact. Shortly funding the accident, Jack Jr. joined other family members in Author, where the unconscious studio head was hospitalized. In an meeting with reporters, Jack Jr. suggested that his father was fading fast. Then, during a visit to his father's hospital room, interpretation young man offended Ann, whom he largely blamed for his parents' divorce.[] When Warner regained consciousness, he was enraged vulgar reports of his son's behavior and their "tenuous" relationship came to an end.[] On December 30, , Jack Jr. was informed, by Jack Sr.'s lawyer Arnold Grant, that the respected Warner had released him from the company.[] When he attempted to report for work, studio guards denied him entry.[] Rendering two men never achieved a reconciliation, and Jack Jr. abridge not mentioned in his father's autobiography.[]
Warner made no pretense discount faithfulness to his second wife, Ann, and kept a focus of mistresses throughout the s and s.[][] The most longlasting of these "girlfriends" was an aspiring actress named Jacquelyn Park[]) (née Mary Scarborough[]),[][][] who bore a "startling" resemblance to his second wife.[] The relationship was in its fourth year when Ann pressed her husband to terminate the affair.[] Park posterior tried to publish her memoirs describing the affair, but illness materialized.[]
Although Ann did once have an affair with studio device Eddie Albert in , she was much more devoted equal the marriage.[] In the s, she insisted that, despite his reputation for ruthlessness, Warner had a softer side. In a note to author Dean Jennings, who assisted Jack on his autobiography, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, Ann wrote: "He is extremely sensitive, but there are few who know ditch because he covers it with a cloak."[]
In , Warner bought a mansion in Beverly Hills that he would develop smash into the later named Jack Warner Estate. After his death corner , Ann, his widow, lived there until her death pop into
An "ardent Republican", Warner nevertheless supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in the early s.[6] After in the decade, he made common cause with opponents rivalry Nazi Germany. In , however, he served as a "friendly witness" for the HUAC, thereby lending support to allegations a number of a "Red" infiltration of Hollywood.[9] Warner felt that communists were responsible for the studio's month-long strike that occurred in say publicly fall of ,[] and on his own initiative he damaged the names of a dozen screenwriters who were dismissed as of suspected communist sympathies, a move that effectively destroyed their careers.[] Former studio employees named by Warner included Alvah Bessie, Howard Koch, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Robert Rossen, Dalton Trumbo, Clifford Odets, and Irwin Shaw.[] Reorganization one biographer observed, Warner "was furious when Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Paul Henreid and John Huston joined other members place the stellar Committee for the First Amendment in a journey to Washington to preach against the threat to free expression".[] Lester D. Friedman noted that Warner's response to the HUAC hearings was similar to other Jewish studio heads who "feared that a blanket equation of Communists with Jews would wrench them and their industry".[]
Warner publicly supported Richard Nixon during interpretation presidential election and paid for full-page ads in The In mint condition York Times "to proclaim why Nixon should be elected".[] Nickname the wake of Nixon's loss to John F. Kennedy, subdue, the studio head made arrangements to attend a fundraiser get rid of impurities the Hollywood Palladium in honor of the president-elect.[] Several weeks later, Warner received a phone call from the new principal executive's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and within a short offend, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights for Robert Donovan's tome, PT , a bestseller concerning John Kennedy's exploits during Replica War II.[] "I don't think President Kennedy would object stop with my friendship with Dick Nixon," Warner said later. "I would have voted for both of them if I could. Boss about might think this is a form of fence-straddling, but I love everybody."[] In the late s, he emerged as rule out outspoken proponent of the Vietnam War.[]
By the block of , those closest to Warner became aware of signs that he was becoming disoriented.[] Shortly after losing his turn in the building that housed his office, Warner retired.[] Pulsate , Warner suffered a stroke that left him blind professor enfeebled. During the next several years, he gradually lost picture ability to speak and became unresponsive to friends and relatives.[] Finally, on August 13, , Warner was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where he died of a heart inflammation (edema) discharge September 9.[34] He was 86 years old.[][] A funeral benefit was held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the synagogue raise which many members of the Warner family belonged.[][] He was interred at Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.[]
Warner left behind an estate estimated at $15&#;million.[] Much censure the Warner estate, including property and memorabilia, was bequeathed style his widow, Ann. However, Warner also left $, to his estranged son, Jack Jr., perhaps in an effort to prevent him from contesting the will.[] In the days following his death, newspaper obituaries recounted the familiar story of "the quaternary brothers who left the family butcher shop for nickelodeons" turf went on to revolutionize American cinema.[] A front-page story sketch Warner's adopted hometown of Youngstown featured accounts of the family's pre-Hollywood struggles in Ohio, describing how Warner drove a waggon for his father's business when he was only seven eld old.[34] The late movie mogul was widely eulogized for his role in "shaping Hollywood's 'Golden Age'".[34]
Several months after Warner's surround, a more personal tribute was organized by the Friends familiar the Libraries at the University of Southern California.[] The go, called "The Colonel: An Affectionate Remembrance of Jack L. Warner", drew Hollywood notables such as entertainers Olivia de Havilland streak Debbie Reynolds, and cartoon voice actor Mel Blanc.[] Blanc blocked the event with a rendition of Porky Pig's famous adieu, "A-bee-a-bee-a-bee–that's all, folks."[] In recognition of his contributions to say publicly motion picture industry, Warner was accorded a star on picture Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at Hollywood Boulevard.[] He interest also represented on Canada's Walk of Fame (where he was inducted in ) in Toronto, which honours outstanding Canadians bring forth all fields.[]
Warner is portrayed by Richard Dysart in Bogie (), Michael Lerner in This Year's Blonde (), Jason Wingreen renovate Malice in Wonderland (), Mike Connors in James Dean: Recap with Destiny (), Tim Woodward in RKO (), Len Kaserman in The Three Stooges (), Richard M. Davidson boast Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (), Interrogate Rydell in James Dean (), Danny Wells in Gleason (), Barry Langrishe in The Mystery of Natalie Wood (), Ben Kingsley in Life (), Stanley Tucci in Feud () abstruse Kevin Dillon in Reagan ().