Movie Execs & Studio History

This is a good idea! From a time when movie executives knowing and loving movies was more of the norm. My knowledge on this topic is terribly lacking. I'll be looking forward to seeing this thread updated.

(that's my way of mooching info from this thread without contributing back... hehehe)

Try "What Happens Next". It's a history of screenwriting but it has some great early Hollywood studio stories.

Studio heads and their influence on Hollywood at the time is an interesting - very interesting - subject. I feel like the earlier days of Hollywood it's easier to see direct influence of the heads. It's also easier to find information. Zanuck, Mayer and the lot are american figureheads. It's incredible to see how their attitudes have influenced American culture of the last century.

Of course, The Kid Stays in the Picture is a very interesting resource.

One book that I've been dying to read but haven't gotten around to yet is The Last Mogul, about Lew Wasserman, the head of MCA talent agency who later bought Universal. Here's an excerpt detailing how Wasserman single-handedly crushed the career of Eddie Bracken.

I'm obsessed with the history of the studios - OBSESSED. Whenever I have meetings on any of the lots I always go early just to wander around. There's the great memorial on the Warner lot dedicated to the employees who fought during World War II (with two of the Warner Brothers up top), there are all those Best Picture Oscars ringing the lobby of the Selznick building of the Sony lot, all those amazing props, cells and pieces of artwork in the old Animation Building on Disney, the cool old "composers building" on the Fox lot that's ringed with reliefs of composers and musical instruments, there's the double-tall Warners stage that Hearst paid to raise the ceiling of so that a Marion Davies movie could have the tallest set ever, etc.

I think it's cool that Joel Silver is in Sinatra's old office, that Robert Evans' old office had framed Oscar nomination certificates shoulder-to-shoulder on his walls with terrifyingly awful framed "Popeye" reviews, that every time I pass under the Bronson Gates at Paramount I'm reminded where Charles Buchinsky got his stage name, etc. etc. etc.

Even better, I loved telling the guys who used to work at Miramax that their building used to be one of Mickey Cohen's brothels on the north side of Sunset. When I meet the old execs, I always try to get them to let me take them out to lunch to tell me war stories. Trust me, they LOVE talking about the old days, old directors, old movies and if you actually show an interest or, better yet, know the movies they're talking about, they're your new best friend. Hell, I loved it when my wife worked on the Universal lot and her office was one of the old "Murder, She Wrote" writing rooms.

A funny story about the continuity of the studios. I was meeting with David Eick once, one of the "Battlestar" producers, in his office at Uni. He was talking TV and was saying that, as TV is a killer, he found himself working late on "Battlestar" on Christmas Eve at his office there and ran into Shaun Cassidy, who had been upstairs in the "Invasion" offices, in the break room. The two of them chatted and then, suddenly, realized that they had been in this exact same building and the exact same break room over a decade before on the exact same date - Christmas Eve - when they were working together on "American Gothic."

It's strange to say, but the studios are magical damn places, all that Hollywood history all around you.

Alan Ladd. Without this guy, there'd be no Star Wars or Blade Runner.

Pretty cool, I didn't know that. I wonder how Britain's Most Violent Prisoner would feel if he knew his real namesake was a big wrought iron gate.

That's Allan Ladd JR. As a Producer and as the founder of his own production studio (The Ladd Company)he'd given us such films as:

Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back
Blade Runner
Alien
Outland
Gone Baby Gone
Braveheart
The Right Stuff
Night Shift!


But..he was also responsible for the Policy Academy and Brady Bunch movies

Thanks for sharing your experiences on the studio lots. Even reading about it second hand is so awesome.


The Brothers Warner is really worth checking out. And the Universal Horror documentary on the Frankenstein 75th Anniversary edition DVD has some nice stuff in the beginning about the Laemmle family running Universal Studios.

Yeah, but it was a completely different time as everything north of Sunset used to be "unincorporated Los Angeles," which meant its jurisdiction was hazy as hell as a lot of those meant to police that area (especially the Burbank P.D., the most bought-and-sold police force at the time) were "picking up the envelope" as they say. A lot of those buildings were casinos or, say, front operations that sold suits in the front but had nothing but walls of phones in the back that bookies would rent from Cohen to place bets all across the country.

Here's the Wiki on that building:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacienda_Arms_Apartments

That book they mention, "Ladies on Call" by Lee Francis, is awesome.

This is a great, great book.