All Topics  
Walter Wanger

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Walter Wanger
 
 
  Topics Walter Wanger Topic Home

Walter Wanger (July 11, 1894 – November 18, 1968) was an Academy Award-winning American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 film producer
Film producer

A film producer is someone who creates the conditions for making film. The producer initiates, co-ordinates, supervises and controls matters such as fund-raising, hiring key personnel and arranging for distributors....
. An intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas, Wanger's career started at Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production company and distribution company, located on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California....
 in the 1920s and led him to work at virtually every major studio as either a contract producer or an independent.

For the most complete sense of Walter Wanger's life and film career, read Matthew Bernstein's book Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent and The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era by Thomas Schatz.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Walter Wanger'
Start a new discussion about 'Walter Wanger'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Walter Wanger (July 11, 1894 – November 18, 1968) was an Academy Award-winning American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 film producer
Film producer

A film producer is someone who creates the conditions for making film. The producer initiates, co-ordinates, supervises and controls matters such as fund-raising, hiring key personnel and arranging for distributors....
. An intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas, Wanger's career started at Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production company and distribution company, located on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California....
 in the 1920s and led him to work at virtually every major studio as either a contract producer or an independent.

For the most complete sense of Walter Wanger's life and film career, read Matthew Bernstein's book Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent and The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era by Thomas Schatz. Wanger was born Walter Feuchtwanger in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California

The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States, with a 2007 estimated population of 799,183....
, and pronounced "Wanger" to rhyme with "danger". He served with the United States Army
United States Army

The United States Army is the branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for Army operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S....
 during World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
. He attended Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private university, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, New Hampshire. Incorporated as "Trustees of Dartmouth College,"...
 in New Hampshire.

He produced his first motion picture in 1929 titled The Cocoanuts
The Cocoanuts

The Cocoanuts was the first feature-length Marx Brothers film, produced by Paramount Pictures. The musical comedy stars the four Marx Brothers, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton and Margaret Dumont....
, directed by Robert Florey
Robert Florey

Robert Florey was a French people screenwriter, director of short films, and actor who moved to Hollywood in 1921. In 1950, Florey was made a knight in the French L?gion d'honneur....
 and Joseph Santley
Joseph Santley

Joseph Santley was an United States actor, singer, dancer, writer, director, and producer of musical theatre and motion pictures.Born Joseph Mansfield in Salt Lake City, Utah, he adopted the stage name of his stepfather, actor Eugene Santley....
 and starring the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were a popular team of sibling comedians who appeared in vaudeville, stage plays, film, and television....
. His many productions include The Sheik
The Sheik (film)

The Sheik is a 1921 in film silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky, directed by George Melford and starring Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres and Adolphe Menjou....
 (1921), Tarnished Lady
Tarnished Lady

Tarnished Lady is a 1931 in film Cinema of the United States drama film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart is based on his short story "A Story of a New York Lady."...
 (1931), Gabriel Over the White House
Gabriel Over the White House

Gabriel Over the White House is a 1933 in film film depicting a fictional President of the United States who has a religious experience and attempts to solve his country's problems through authoritarianism means....
 (1933), Queen Christina
Queen Christina (film)

Queen Christina is a Cinema of the United States Pre-Code historical drama film directed by Rouben Mamoulian. The film was written by Viertel LeVino and Margaret "Peg" LeVino, with dialogue by S....
 (1933), The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936 film)

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is a 1936 in film romance film based on the novel of the The Trail of the Lonesome Pine . It was directed by Henry Hathaway....
 (1936), History Is Made At Night
History Is Made at Night (1937 film)

History Is Made at Night is a 1937 in film romantic drama with elements of comedy and spectacle.It deals with a love triangle among a possessive shipping magnate, his beautiful wife, and a French headwaiter, with a spectacular ocean liner as a backdrop....
 (1937), Stagecoach
Stagecoach (film)

Stagecoach is a western film directed by John Ford, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne in his breakthrough role. The screenplay, written by Dudley Nichols and Ben Hecht, is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 in literature short story by Ernest Haycox....
 (1939), Foreign Correspondent
Foreign Correspondent (film)

Foreign Correspondent is a Cinema of the United States Thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock which tells the story of an American reporter who tries to expose enemy spies in United Kingdom, a series of events involving a continent-wide conspiracy that eventually leads to the events of a fictionalized Second World War....
 (1940), Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street

Scarlet Street , directed by Fritz Lang, is a film noir based on the French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardi?re, that previously had been dramatized on stage by Andr? Mou?zy-?on, and cinematically as La Chienne by director Jean Renoir....
 (1945), Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (1948 film)

Joan of Arc is a 1948 in film Technicolor film directed by Victor Fleming; starring Ingrid Bergman as the Joan of Arc. It was produced by Walter Wanger....
 (1948), The Reckless Moment
The Reckless Moment

The Reckless Moment is a melodrama film directed by Max Oph?ls, produced by Walter Wanger, and released by Columbia Pictures. Burnett Guffey served as the films cinematographer....
 (1949), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), I Want to Live!
I Want to Live!

I Want to Live! is a Drama film film noir directed by Robert Wise which tells the story of a woman, Barbara Graham, convicted of murder and facing execution....
 (1958), and Cleopatra
Cleopatra (1963 film)

Cleopatra is a 1963 in film film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was adapted by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Joseph L....
 (1963).

Wanger married silent film
Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially spoken dialogue. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made possible in the late 1920s with the introduction of the Vitaphone system....
 actress Justine Johnstone
Justine Johnstone

Justine Johnstone was an American stage and silent screen actress who retired to become a pathologist and expert on syphilis. She also was part of the team that developed the modern intravenous drip technique....
 in 1919. They divorced in 1938 and in 1940 he married Joan Bennett
Joan Bennett

Joan Geraldine Bennett was an Cinema of the United States stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the theatre, Bennett appeared in more than 70 film from the era of silent film through half a century of the sound film....
 with whom he remained married until their divorce in 1965. They had two daughters, Stephanie (born 1943) and Shelley Antonia (born 1948), and Wanger adopted Bennett's daughter, Diana, by her marriage to John Marion Fox. In 1950, Bennett signed with MCA
Music Corporation of America

MCA, Inc. was an United States corporation in the music and television businesses. MCA published music, booked acts, ran a record company, and distributed television productions and home videos....
 agent Jennings Lang (1915-1996). In 1951, Wanger shot at Lang after believing him to be having an affair with Bennett. Wanger's attorney, Jerry Giesler
Jerry Giesler

File:Marilyn Monroe and Jerry Giesler 1.jpgJerry Giesler was an United States criminal defence lawyer.For more than half a century, Jerry Giesler was a household name across the United States....
, mounted a "temporary insanity" defense and Wanger served a four-month sentence at the Castaic Honor Farm two hours' drive north of Los Angeles. The experience profoundly affected him and in 1954 he made the prison film Riot in Cell Block 11
Riot in Cell Block 11

Riot in Cell Block 11 is a 1954 in film drama film starring Neville Brand and Leo Gordon. It was directed by Don Siegel, based on the screenplay by Richard Collins....
.

Wanger was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1946 for his service as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures....
. He refused another honorary Oscar in 1949 for Joan of Arc, out of anger over the fact that the film, which he felt was one of his best, had not been nominated for Best Picture.

His 1958 production of I Want to Live! starred Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward

Susan Hayward was an American actress.After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 in the hope of playing the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind ....
 in an anti-capital punishment
Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the killing of a person by procedural law for Punishment#Retribution and Punishment#Incapacitation....
 film that is one of the most highly regarded films on the subject. Hayward won her only Oscar for her role in the film.

In May 1966, Wanger received the Commendation of the Order of Merit, Italy's third-highest honor, from Consul General Alvaro v. Bettrani, "for your friendship and cooperation with the Italian government in all phases of the motion picture industry."

Walter Wanger died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when the Blood flow to part of the heart is interrupted. This is most commonly due to occlusion of a coronary artery following the rupture of a Vulnerable plaque, which is an unstable collection of lipids and white blood cells in the wall of an artery....
, aged 74, in New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. He was interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in Colma, California
Colma, California

Colma is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, at the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area....
.

External links