Jewish Contributions to Humanity
# in a series
LEON HALIP
The Jewish Producers
Who Made Hollywood...
Hollywood.
IRVING THALBERG (1899-1936).
BELLE ISLE CONSERVANCY
A previous yoga fundraising event on Belle Isle near the aquarium and conservatory
LAURIE TENNENT
Trayce and Randy Fenton
Aaron Fenton
details
The 5th Annual Aaron Fenton Memo-
rial Yoga Event will be held Saturday,
Aug. 25, at the Anna Scripps Whitcomb
Conservatory Gardens adjacent to the
aquarium on Belle Isle. Check-in starts
at 8:30 a.m., with the yoga practice
set from 9-10 a.m. Cost is $40 per
person. Proceeds will help restore the
remaining 10 tanks at the aquarium.
For tickets and donations, go to http://
belleisleconservancy.org/fentonyoga.
For sponsorship opportunities, contact
Katy Wyerman at wyermank@
belleisleconservancy.org,
(313) 331-7019 or Shawna Mitchell at
(313) 331-7052.
resurgent cineribus , meaning “We
hope for better things; it shall arise
from the ashes.” The motto, born
out of a devastating fire in Detroit
in 1805, inspired the Ford Motor
Company to recently project those
timeless words in lights onto anoth-
er iconic Detroit building when,
with great fanfare, the automaker
announced to a thankful city they
had acquired the beloved Michigan
Central Station. It’s all part of a
massive corporate and cultural
infusion in Detroit by Ford.
The Belle Isle Aquarium and the
train station, fewer than nine miles
apart, are now bookends to the
rejuvenation of the heart of our city
that is finally experiencing a true
renaissance. Two artistic treasures
both destined to have a date with
the wrecking ball now stand as a
testament to the city’s resilience.
The aquarium is experiencing
record attendance. According to a
recent progress report, when the
aquarium reopened in 2012, there
were months where a peak of 3,000
visitors passed through its doors. In
July 2017, more than 30,000 guests
walked among the restored glisten-
ing emerald glass-tiled walls of the
only combined aquarium and con-
servancy in the country. “It’s irre-
placeable; never to be duplicated,”
Randy says.
Pay a visit to the Belle Isle
Aquarium and see firsthand how
you can help restore the aquarium’s
treasured past by supporting its
future. Moe will thank you for it.
Who’s Moe? He was the aquarium’s
80-year old koi fish who passed
away last year. Moe and the Belle
Isle Aquarium — two indestructible
forces that personify the spirit of
Detroit; a city that bends but never
breaks. Let’s fill the tanks in memo-
ry of Moe! •
b. Brooklyn, New York. d. Santa Monica, California.
Hollywood’s “most creative producer.”
Producer Irving Thalberg died before 40, but accomplished more
than most filmmakers do in a lifetime. As a child, he was diagnosed
with a congenital heart disease, and was told he could die before
30. So, instead of spending time in college after high school, he
took an entry-level job at Universal Pictures in New York, and at
20 became manager of Universal’s Los Angeles studio. Thalberg
quickly gained the respect of directors, writers and other producers
for, among other things, his knack for picking winning movies, his obsession with quality, and
his turning around of Universal’s fortunes—and profits. Louis B. Mayer convinced Thalberg
to become an executive at what was to become the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio,
where, before his early death, Thalberg again worked magic, spearheading classics like Ben
Hur and Mutiny on the Bounty. It’s for good reason that Darryl Zanuck, the founder of 20th
Century Fox, called Thalberg the “most creative producer in the history of films.”
DAVID O. SELZNICK (1902-1965).
b. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. d. Los Angeles, California.
A big-budget perfectionist.
The producer of classics like Gone With the Wind, David
Copperfield and King Kong. David O. Selznick played a key role in
boosting the careers of film legends like Clark Gable, Katherine
Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Unlike many other Jewish filmmakers
during Hollywood’s Golden Age, Selznick was raised in a well to
do movie-loving home, in which his father, Lewis, was a silent-film
producer and director. Moving to Hollywood in 1926, Selznick took
a script-reading job at MGM, moved up the ladder, and then joined Paramount and RKO.
There, he first established himself as a perfectionist who wanted the best casts and often
demanded large budgets. But Selznick didn’t make his biggest impact until he launched
Selznick International Pictures in 1936. Two years later, he released Gone With the Wind after
just 22 weeks of rapid production. It was a nearly four-hour film and cost a record $4 million
to make; but it was also an instant classic, winning 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, and
cementing Selznick as a larger-than-life Hollywood character.
OTTO PREMINGER (1905-1986).
b. Vienna, Austria. d. New York, New York.
A Hollywood star who fought Hollywood.
Of an independent mind who was ahead of his time, from an
early age Otto Preminger eschewed his family’s preferred path of a
career in law. When Preminger, as just a teenager, acted in theaters
around Vienna after school, the director Max Reinhardt spotted
Preminger’s talent, cast him in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and
made him a manager of one of his theaters at just 19. Over the
next decade, Preminger established himself as one of Europe’s top
theater producer-directors, and also dabbled in film. In 1935 Preminger left Europe for New
York in part because of the rise of anti-Semitism, and also because he was invited to direct
Broadway plays. In the U.S., Preminger further grew his reputation as a master of the theater,
and soon became a renowned filmmaker as well, directing over 35 feature-films and earning
two Best Director nominations and one Best Picture nomination. Among his most notable
productions were the film noir hit Laura, and Anatomy of a Murder with Frank Sinatra. But
Preminger also developed a love-hate relationship with Hollywood, challenging norms by
producing films that dealt with taboo topics like drug addiction and homosexuality. And in
hiring blacklisted writers like Dalton Trumbo to write Exodus, he threatened his own career
for the sake of criticizing and defying Hollywood’s censure of actors, writers and producers
who sympathized with the communist movement.
Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel
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August 16 • 2018
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