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| Displaying Producers Anecdotes: 212 Found |
For God's Sake?
One day producer Sam Zimbalist approached Graham Greene to ask for assistance wi...
Withnailed?
With filming completed, Bruce Robinson's Withnail And I was shown to a sm...
Conflicted Soul
CBS president Fred Silverman was once asked by a friend whether he planned to go...
Honor System
In a bid to promote Raoul Walsh's 1917 prison drama ...
Spectacular Goldwyn
Before his incarnation as a successful screenwriter, Edmund North worked as a pr...
20th Century-Fox?
Despite his pioneering role as founder of Twentieth Century-Fox, Darryl F. Zanuc...
Tromatic Experience
In 1974 Yale students Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz founded an independent New ...
George Burned
Gracie Allen, offered $750 a week to appear in one of Florenz Ziegfeld's famous ...
Unscripted Solution
John Ford once directed a film for Samuel Goldwyn and MGM. When the shooting beg...
Alfred Hitchcock: Bumpy Trip?
Alfred Hitchcock was once detained at a French airport by a customs official who...
Story of a Milkman
One day during the production of The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), Paul ...
Prioritities
Among the most difficult decisions during the production of Michael Gordon's ...
Pope-a
Though the novel received mixed reviews, legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis p...
Phone Booth
Phone Booth is a taut Hitchcockian thriller which takes place in one loca...
Fundamentalist Films
Irked that Muslims were being blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Cana...
Steven Spielberg: Final Cut
Only top-tier directors are given "final cut" by their studios. "Steven Spielber...
Rembrandt Lighting
While directing a picture for the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company one day, C...
C.. BS?
Although producers had great faith in the dramatic abilities of both Lucille Bal...
Street Wisdom?
When Sinclair Lewis's Main Street became a worldwide bestseller, Jack War...
Ultimatum
Shortly after Disney bought Laurence Dworet's original screenplay for ...
Producer's Prayer
"On transcontinental Flights," producer Steven Bach once recalled, "I would reci...
Ingenue
One day Alfred Capus attended a rehearsal during which a certain ingenue (in the...
Samuel Goldwyn: Master Nego...
One day Samuel Goldwyn found himself negotiating a contract with a certain actor...
Jack Squat
While crossing the Atlantic aboard a steam ship one summer, the director Mervyn ...
Happy Ending?
During the production of his classic Oscar-winning 1930 film ...
George Bernard $haw
MGM studio chief Samuel Goldwyn once attempted to purchase the film rights to se...
Paramount Olympus?
Paramount Studios chief Adolph Zukor once offered $30,000 for the film rights to...
Charlie Brown Christmas
One day shortly before Christmas in 1965, "Peanuts" producer Lee Mendelson appro...
Martin Scorsese & Harvey We...
With Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York well over budget, Miramax co-Cha...
Oxymoronic
One day during the production of Dead End (1937), William Wyler's screen ...
Beeline
While Goldwyn Pictures chief Samuel Goldwyn would spare little expense acquiring...
Crime Scene Investigation
One day in May 2002, Carol Mendelsohn, Ann Donahue, and Anthony Zuiker (the exec...
Soldier of Misfortune?
In the mid-1980s, P. J. O'Rourke moved to Hollywood and 'enjoyed' a brief stint ...
Grazer's Ruse
Early in his career, legendary Hollywood producer Brian Grazer came up with a st...
Brown and Associates
Fresh out of their respective schools, future Hollywood producers David Brown an...
Producers
Shortly after Jeffrey Katzenberg's Dick Tracy opened (on the same day as ...
Talent Scout
An aspiring nymphette, eager to appear on "Talent Scouts," once sent Irving Mans...
Tannen's Toupee
Despite a successful stage career, Julius Tannen had great difficulty finding wo...
Daniel Day-Lewis & Harvey W...
With Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York well over budget, Miramax co-Cha...
Classic Cohn
Columbia Studios founder Harry Cohn, famed for his trouble with the English lang...
Oh MI!
One day while working as a screenwriter in Hollywood, William Faulkner asked his...
Hollywood Scenario
"After the sale of the motion picture rights to On Trial the movie direct...
Point of View (long)
"Ted Elliott and I [Terry Rossio] were working as producers on a project set up ...
Ten Commandments
One day during the production of The Ten Commandments (1923), Paramount c...
Minor Problem
MGM composer Victor Young was no wastedr to the vagaries of idiot producers. He ...
Hollywood Agent
Ignorance of the great classics was widespread during Hollywood's Golden Age. On...
Razzamatazzzzzz
Like many of his fellow moguls, Columbia chief Harry Cohn was of Eastern Europea...
Home Alone
During his 1991 Christmas TV special, Bob Hope spoke with 11-year old Macaulay C...
Classic Cohn
One day Columbia Studios chief Harry Cohn heard about a popular story called ...
Classic Cohn
While writing a pivotal scene one day (in which a business tycoon gives a speech...
Wozzeck
The composer David Raksin was once told by a director that he did not want "any ...
John Ford: Maverick Director
Legendary director John Ford, who strongly resented studio interference, was vis...
Idiot Producer
"Akira Kurosawa was no stick-in-the-mud. When a production company proposed to s...
Better Served Cold?
Early in his career, George Bernard Shaw had his request to stage a play repeate...
RKO
"At RKO [one of the original big five Hollywood studios] lack of continuity in m...
Deadline
Though Michael Gordon, a former theatrical director, began his Hollywood career ...
Jimmy Eat World & Capitol R...
Within a year of their first show, Jimmy Eat World released their self-titled de...
Musically Challenged
Lew Brown was once summoned into the office of a musically challenged producer w...
Disney's Fantasia
Walt Disney was delighted with the music in his classic animated feature ...
Scooter Girl
Because of the erratic conditions encountered during the production of ...
Dailey's Blues
Dan Dailey once devised a great idea for a film: While walking past the loading ...
Marketing Macabre
The B-movie director/producer William Castle was famed for his over-the-top prom...
Give Up Sisters
"On Give Out Sisters (1942), again with the Andrews trio, there were so m...
French Enough?
One day Twentieth Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck listened to some music for ...
Brepus?
"Samuel Goldwyn knew everything about films - costumes, settings, characters, di...
Thing Called Dialogue
In the late 1920s, talkies took Hollywood by storm. So fast was the transformati...
Goldfish & Selwyn
Before organizing his own studio and becoming the first great independent produc...
Heat
During the production of the screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's ...
Ben Hur (long)
One Saturday morning during the production of Ben-Hur (1926), producer Ir...
Dumb Producer
Warner Bros. chief Jack Warner once planned to produce a biopic about Beethoven ...
Hollywood Manura
In 2001, the Hollywood frenzy over Asian films was such that in October, the hor...
Daffy Duck: Funny Voithe
While brainstorming one day during the production of the animated short "Porky's...
Barry Sonnenfeld: Get Shorty
One day during the production of Get Shorty (1995), director Barry Sonnen...
Jack Olsen: Hollywood Scree...
After working on fifteen film projects and a television pilot, the screenwriter ...
Cher: Screwed
Like many actresses, Cher was often victimized by powerful producers. "If I'd be...
Robert Altman: Saved by Bimbos
"When the studio people saw the movie, they said, 'This picture's going straight...
Shelby Lynne: Star Broker
In 2001, Shelby Lynne (working with Glen Ballard, the man behind Alanis Morisset...
Nelly Furtado: Bird Brains
Nelly Furtado's debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, was released in 2000 and, prop...
Heidi Fleiss: Fantasy Night
While researching her role in Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss ...
Joseph E. Levine: Producers...
After agreeing to finance his comedy classic, The Producers, Embassy Pict...
Jerry Seinfeld: Pilot Report
The stellar success of "Seinfeld" came as a surprise to many of the show's produ...
The Replacements: Big Stink
The Replacements once played a showcase gig for a group of record industry bigwi...
Dinah Washington & Quincy J...
"[Dinah Washington's] determination was a godsend to young musicians she believe...
Buddy Hackett: Producer's P...
"Buddy Hackett told me a story one time," David Brenner later recalled. "One of ...
Clint Eastwood: Hang 'em High
Director Ted Post: "When I directed Hang 'em High [in 1968], producer Leo...
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
After the six stars of "Friends" successfully banded together (in 1998) to reneg...
Sextortion
It was said of studio chief Louis B. Mayer that any actress who wished to appear...
Big Production?
Producer Jerry Weintraub started his career as an agent and concert promoter. In...
Samuel Goldwyn & Louis Brom...
Samuel Goldwyn once invited Louis Bromfield to Hollywood to write for the screen...
Sci-Fi Producer
William Gibson, whose science fiction works are well suited to screen adaptation...
Producer's Pride?
One day Samuel Goldwyn called rival studio chief Darryl Zanuck to arrange to bor...
Fiction Writers
Arnold Schwarzenegger was once asked to name his favorite writers. "My favorite ...
Greta Garbo: Tank Warfare
After the success of such films as "The Torrent" and "Flesh and the Devil," Gret...
Three Weeks
Legendary studio chief Jack Warner once asked composer Harry Warren how long it ...
Roger Corman: Inside Joke
Like many of Roger Corman's former proteges, director Joe Dante later hired the ...
Flying Ants
One day theatrical producer David N. Morton received a telegram informing him th...
Independent Producer
During the production of Frederick Brisson's first project as an independent (19...
The Shipping News
"Shooting began March 4, 2001, on a frozen plain outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. T...
Lonesome Pine
In 1916, the legendary director Cecil B. De Mille produced a film adaptation of ...
Author's Advance
The producer George Edwardes was once asked for an advance which would enable a ...
De Mille & Zukor
In 1922 Cecil B. De Mille offered $1,000 for the best idea for his next film. Th...
50-50
One Friday in 1979, Keith Richards blew into town and invited
John Belushi to ...
How to Run a Seminar? (long)
One evening in March 2003, producer Jean Doumanian - whose path to success entai...
Blockbuster Producer
Blockbuster producers Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer almost single-handedly r...
Volga Boatman
MGM composer William Axt was once assigned to compose some music for a film call...
Harvey Weinstein & the Star...
The production delays on Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York were a sourc...
Fast Track Career?
Before he began filming Ghost World (his first feature film), Terry Zwigo...
Goldwyn Emergency
Hollywood legend David Selznick once received an urgent telephone call in the mi...
Clean Break?
After his divorce from Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold formed a new production company...
Marshall & Gleason
How did Garry Marshall and his producers convince Jackie Gleason to play the rol...
Mike Darnell: Wedding Brain...
One day in 2002, the producer Mike Darnell (the genius behind such Fox reality s...
Rats
George M. Cohan had auditioned an actor for a role but elected to dismiss him. "...
Harry Shearer: Playing Sadat
Harry Shearer: "There was this sketch [on 'Saturday Night Live'] in which Garret...
Tarzan Rights
In 1931, MGM chief Irving Thalberg, bent on acquiring the film rights to Edgar R...
Goldwyn & Milestone
Like many pragmatic directors, Lewis Milestone had several memorable arguments w...
Screenwriting Tips
The Metro producer Hunt Stromberg once found himself discussing a proposed South...
Stall and Negotiate
One day during the production of Mark Rydell's bank heist comedy caper ...
Snoopy
In 1969, NASA honored "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz by naming Apollo 10's ...
Splash
"What set [Hollywood producer Brian Grazer] apart from everyone else was his cra...
Tom Schulman: Production Hell
Early in his screenwriting career, Tom Schulman, like most Hollywood scribes, di...
Samuel Bronston & Francisco...
In 1959, the producer Samuel Bronston, with the encouragement of the Spanish gov...
Little Bee
Walt Disney was once approached by a small boy and asked whether he drew Mickey ...
Supermoron (long)
After seeing Mallrats, Warner Brothers producer Jon Peters considered hir...
Hollywood Producer
After seeing Kevin Smith's Mallrats, Warner Brothers production chief Jon...
Barry Sonnenfeld's Problem ...
Though Barry Sonnenfeld's For Love or Money was scheduled to appear in th...
Red Ink
Robert Morley was once approached by a small group of American theatre producers...
Gentleman's Agreement (long)
Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, Jack Warner, Samuel Goldwyn, Carl Laemmle, Adolph Zu...
Billion Dollar Baby
Even though Billion Dollar Baby, a musical by Betty Comden and
Adolph Gr...
Colombia Studios?
"Harry 'King' Cohn was a school dropout from New York who went west to plug song...
Consider Betelgeuse
Albert Einstein was among the notable guests who attended the premiere of Charli...
Financial Crisis at MGM
"There were always financial crises," director Joseph L. Mankiewicz once recalle...
Ziegfeld Follies
"Showman Florenz Ziegfeld [the producer behind the Ziegfeld Follies] believed in...
Bing & Callas
When Bing cancelled Maria Callas's contract with the Metropolitan Opera (in 1958...
Whale
In 2002, the horror film producer Roy Lee began negotiating with Dimension Films...
Scott Rudin
Scott Rudin's abuse of assistants has become a thing of legend. "Like the tale o...
Bob Florsheim: Hollywood Sc...
The screenwriter Bob Florsheim was once enlisted to work on a political thriller...
Lillix at Fat Camp
Before filming the video for "It's About Time," Lillix singer Tasha-Ray Evin was...
Bingham Ray: President of U...
One day in 2003, the young screenwriter Dave Kalstein visited United Artists to ...
Alfred Hitchcock & Lew Wass...
"Alfred Hitchcock had a complicated relationship with Wasserman [his agent and p...
Ivan Reitman: Cannibal Girls
While seeking financing for his second comedy (Cannibal Girls) in 1972, I...
Lou Pearlman: Boy Band Sven...
Lou Pearlman, the genius behind such boy bands as the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, ...
Michael Beinhorn: Perfectio...
The producer Michael Beinhorn earned a reputation in the industry for his intens...
Studio Execs: Dumb & Dumber?
In a classic scene in Dumb & Dumber, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels obliviou...
Stan Lee: No Bruces
"His name was Bruce Banner," legendary cartoonist Stan Lee once recalled of the ...
Harvey Weinstein: God Complex?
Ben Affleck once wrote a letter to Vanity Fair in response to the magazin...
Harry Cohn & Robert Rossen
Though his Columbia Studios produced the film, Harry Cohn was not a fan of ...
In 1977, hard-nosed "French Co
In 1977, hard-nosed "French Connection" director William Friedkin was tapped to ...
Tom Welling: Tanning Ban
"Smallville" star Tom Welling was once asked about rumors that the show's produc...
Lorne Michaels: Cut the Bees
"The only note we got from the network [NBC] on the first show," "Saturday Night...
Lorne Michaels: Handling Be...
If "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels loved John Belishi's comic geni...
Lorne Michaels: Slipping Ra...
"I was talking to [Saturday Night Live producer] Lorne Michaels about rat...
Lucille Ball & David O. Sel...
"In 1938, legendary producer David O. Selznick held auditions for a lead role in...
Curbstone Autopsy
After every preview, Twentieth Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck would form a h...
Novel Concept
"I remember a call from the MGM Studio," Ben Hecht once recalled. "Bernie Hyman,...
Young Producer
Richard Attenborough first donned the producer's mantle when he staged a perform...
Robert Towne & the Whammo P...
When Robert Towne, the genius behind Chinatown, was hired to write a scri...
Development Hell 101 (long)
Brent Friedman, the first writer to toil on the Tomb Raider script (based...
Sleazy Stephen Baldwin
"[In May 2003, Stephen Baldwin] used one of the oldest and sleaziest lines in th...
Mel Brooks & The Producers
The success of The Producers prompted Mel Brooks to adapt the classic fil...
Development Hell (long)
In January 2001, Hunter S. Thompson sent a curious letter to Holly Sorenson, Sen...
The World of Daryl Zanuck
Herman J. Mankiewicz, having agreed to assume the helm (as director) of the trou...
Swimming With Sharks
"It was a matter of pride for [Hollywood mogul] Lew Wasserman that he did not st...
Jon Peters: Brainiac Producer
After seeing Kevin Smith's Mallrats, Hollywood mega-producer Jon Peters h...
Louis B. Liar?
After a long residency at MGM without a raise, the leading man Robert Taylor mad...
Cohn
When Harry Cohn informed his staff one day that he was leaving for New York, the...
Classic Producer
Samuel Goldwyn took great pride in his films, typically making only one at a tim...
Young Spielberg?
Indiana Jones cemented Spielberg's reputation as a Hollywood powerhouse. ...
Brian Grazer's Homework
In 2003, Hollywood producer Brian Grazer acquired the rights to dig through the ...
Abrasive Walter Parkes
As chief of production at Dreamworks studios, Walter Parkes was noted for his ab...
Nada Surf: Singular Stupidity
After much deliberation, Nada Surf signed with Electra, which released the band'...
Lew Wasserman: Producers Pr...
Seeking financing for his comedy classic, The Producers (originally entit...
Piper Laurie
Rosetta Jacobs allowed producers to change her name to hide her Jewish ancestry....
Bogus?
Many stories exist concerning the origin of Humphrey Bogart's trademark lisp, am...
Walter Parkes: Milking It
In 2003, despite obvious complications, producer Walter Parkes expressed hope th...
Courtney Love: Method Actress?
When former junkie Courtney Love was awarded the role of Althea, Larry Flynt's j...
B-Movie Legend
The legendary Warner Bros. producer Bryan Foy was famed for his productivity. He...
Mega-Producer
After seeing Mallrats, in which characters famously discuss Superman's re...
Lew Wasserman: Power-Broker
Universal Studios chief Lew Wasserman was the preeminent Hollywood power-broker ...
Vain Producer
Like many Hollywood producers, Brian Grazer thrived on the critical accolades wh...
Native Son
Richard Wright once rejected an offer for the film rights to his classic novel ...
Loose Cannon
Long before his implication in the murder of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson, Phil...
Kid Rock: Cocky Producers
"Kid Rock's Cocky got off to what could politely be termed a slow start u...
Ron Howard & Roger Corman
During the production of Grand theft Auto, novice director Ron Howard ask...
John Landis: Dumb Producers
"With Blues Brothers, which focused on African American music," director ...
Kevin Reilly: Hollywood Gla...
"After graduating from Cornell, the Long Island-raised [NBC president Kevin Reil...
Blockbuster Producer
Blockbuster producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson brought Hollywood action...
Zanuck & Preminger (long)
"When Darryl Zanuck and Otto Preminger ran off Laura (1944) in the projec...
Gilbert's Suspenders
During the production of Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow(1925), prod...
Pajamas
Director-screenwriter Robert Towne (who worked with legendary producer Robert Ev...
Wanger Method
"Producer Walter Wanger had two writers under contract for $2,500 a week named T...
Paper Moon
While staying in New York one year in the early 1970s, director Peter Bogdanovic...
Our Gang
The legendary producer Hal Roach looked out of his office window one day and saw...
Hopkins Brainstorm
The great MGM producer Bob Hopkins was famed for generating movie ideas and then...
The Negotiator
"All these arguments I hear year after year about how 'Oh, there's no writers' a...
Jeffrey Katzenberg: Little ...
After Jeffrey Katzenberg's departure from Disney, he filed a $250 million lawsui...
Wacky Winter
The cast and crew of The Shipping News spent six wintry weeks in 2000 fil...
Hollywood Producer
"Sitting next to a drama critic in New York, Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM and Ane...
Cohn Production
Given the animosity with which Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn was regarded by ...
Lug Nuts
"[Horror film producer Roy Lee] would later tell close friends the story of what...
Jack Olsen: Salary Negotiat...
"After [creating] 33 Liberty Street," the screenwriter Jack Olsen later r...
Berry Gordy: Greedy Gordy
Even by the standards of the music industry, Motown Records founder Berry Gordy ...
Casey Chaos: Amen Release P...
Casey Chaos, frontman of the punk band Amen, once claimed that the Italian branc...
Jay Bernstein & Mickey Spil...
Television producer Jay Bernstein first got Mickey Spillane's attention by quoti...
Larry Cohen: The Champ
One day in 2004, screenwriter Larry Cohen visited Walt Disney Studios in Burbank...
Gilbert Cates: Oscar Recomm...
In 1989, flamboyant Grease producer Allan Carr was tapped to produce the ...
Bernie Brillstein: Generati...
"Bernie [NBC's Bernie Brillstein] was there," Brad Grey recalled of the first dr...
Tom Fontana: Pilot
Tom Fontana once did a pilot for CBS. "It was a little edgy," he recalled, "and ...
Warner & Goulding
Though Edmund Goulding agreed to direct the screen adaptation of John Van Druten...
Joel Silver
The fast-talking blockbuster producer Joel Silver was parodied in several films,...
Film Financing Vegas Style
"Financing film production was often a problem, forcing directors at
times to b...
Olsen Twins, Inc
When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's first TV movie trounced "60 Minutes" in the ra...
Larry Gelbart: Lessons from...
Following the final episode of "Mfull of shitAfull of shitSfull of shitH," three...
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