Jack L. Warner
Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner;[1] August 2, 1892 – September 9, 1978) was a Canadian-American film executive, who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Warner's career spanned over 55 years, surpassing that of any other of the seminal Hollywood studio moguls.[2]
Jack L. Warner
September 9, 1978 (aged 86)
Jack Leonard Warner
Film executive
1918–1973
3, including Jack M. Warner and stepdaughter Joy Page
brothers Harry, Albert, and Sam Warner
As co-head of production at Warner Bros. Studios, Warner worked with his brother, Sam Warner, to procure the technology for the film industry's first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927).[3] After Sam's death, Jack clashed with his surviving older brothers, Harry and Albert Warner. He assumed exclusive control of the company in the 1950s when he secretly purchased his brothers's shares in the business after convincing them to participate in a joint sale of stocks.[4]
Although Warner was feared by many of his employees and inspired ridicule with his uneven attempts at humor, he earned respect for his shrewd instincts and tough-mindedness.[2] He recruited many of Warner Bros.' top stars[5] and promoted the hard-edged social dramas for which the studio became known.[6] Given to decisiveness, Warner once commented, "If I'm right fifty-one percent of the time, I'm ahead of the game."[2]
Throughout his career, Warner was viewed as a contradictory and enigmatic figure.[7] Although he was a staunch Republican, he encouraged film projects that promoted the policies of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[6] He also opposed European fascism and criticized Nazi Germany well before America's involvement in World War II.[8] An opponent of communism, after the war Warner appeared as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee, voluntarily naming screenwriters who had been fired at the time as suspected communists or sympathizers.[9] Despite his controversial public image, Warner remained a force in the motion picture industry until his retirement in the early 1970s.
Personal life[edit]
On October 14, 1914, Warner married Irma Claire Salomon, the daughter of Sam Salomon and Bertha Franklin Salomon from one of San Francisco's pioneer Jewish families.[150] Irma gave birth to the couple's only child, Jack M. Warner, on March 27, 1916. Jack Sr. named the child after himself, disregarding an Eastern European Jewish custom that children should not be named after living relatives. Although his son bore a different middle initial, he "has been called Junior all his life".[151]
Warner's first marriage ended in 1935, when he left his wife for another woman, Ann Page, with whom he had a daughter named Barbara.[152][153] Irma sued her husband for divorce on the grounds of desertion. Harry Warner reflected the family's feelings about the marriage when he exclaimed, "Thank God our mother didn't live to see this". Jack married Ann after the divorce. The Warners, who took Irma's side in the affair, refused to accept Ann as a family member.[154] In the wake of this falling out, Warner's relationship with his son, Jack Jr., also became strained.[155]
In the late 1950s, Warner was almost killed in a car accident that left him in a coma for several days. On August 5, 1958, after an evening of baccarat at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, his Alfa Romeo roadster swerved into the path of a coal truck on a stretch of road located near the seaside villa of Prince Aly Khan.[156] Warner was thrown from the car, which burst into flames upon impact. Shortly after the accident, Jack Jr. joined other family members in France, where the unconscious studio head was hospitalized. In an interview with reporters, Jack Jr. suggested that his father was dying. Then, during a visit to his father's hospital room, the young man offended Ann, whom he largely blamed for his parents' divorce.[157] When Warner regained consciousness, he was enraged by reports of his son's behavior and their "tenuous" relationship came to an end.[158] On December 30, 1958, Jack Jr. was informed, by Jack Sr.'s lawyer Arnold Grant, that the elder Warner had released him from the company.[159] When he attempted to report for work, studio guards denied him entry.[160] The two men never achieved a reconciliation, and Jack Jr. is not mentioned in his father's 1964 autobiography.[161]
Warner made no pretense of faithfulness to his second wife, Ann, and kept a series of mistresses throughout the 1950s and 1960s.[162][163] The most enduring of these "girlfriends" was an aspiring actress named Jacquelyn (Jacqueline[164]) "Jackie" Park (née Mary Scarborough[165]),[166][167][168] who bore a "startling" resemblance to his second wife.[169] The relationship was in its fourth year when Ann pressed her husband to terminate the affair.[162] Park later tried to publish her memoirs describing the affair, but nothing materialized.[170]
Although Ann did once have an affair with studio actor Eddie Albert in 1941, she was much more devoted to the marriage by contrast.[171] In the 1960s, 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 1964 autobiography, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, Ann wrote: "He is extremely sensitive, but there are few who know that because he covers it with a cloak."[172]
In 1937, Warner bought a mansion in Beverly Hills that he would develop into the later named Jack Warner Estate. After his death in 1978, Ann, his widow, lived there until her death in 1990.
Political views[edit]
An "ardent Republican", Warner nevertheless supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in the early 1930s.[6] Later in the decade, he made common cause with opponents of Nazi Germany. In 1947, however, he served as a "friendly witness" for the HUAC, thereby lending support to allegations of a "Red" infiltration of Hollywood.[9] Warner felt that communists were responsible for the studio's month-long strike that occurred in the fall of 1946,[173] and on his own initiative he provided the names of a dozen screenwriters who were dismissed because of suspected communist sympathies, a move that effectively destroyed their careers.[174] 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.[175] As one biographer observed, Warner "was furious when Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Paul Henreid and John Huston joined other members of the stellar Committee for the First Amendment in a flight to Washington to preach against the threat to free expression".[174] 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 destroy them and their industry".[176]
Warner publicly supported Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential election and paid for full-page ads in The New York Times "to proclaim why Nixon should be elected".[177] In the wake of Nixon's loss to John F. Kennedy, however, the studio head made arrangements to attend a fundraiser at the Hollywood Palladium in honor of the president-elect.[177] Several weeks later, Warner received a phone call from the new chief executive's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and within a short time, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights for Robert Donovan's book, PT 109, a bestseller concerning John Kennedy's exploits during World War II.[178] "I don't think President Kennedy would object to my friendship with Dick Nixon," Warner said later. "I would have voted for both of them if I could. You might think this is a form of fence-straddling, but I love everybody."[179] In the late 1960s, he emerged as an outspoken proponent of the Vietnam War.[149]
Death and legacy[edit]
By the end of 1973, those closest to Warner became aware of signs that he was becoming disoriented.[149] Shortly after losing his way in the building that housed his office, Warner retired.[180] In 1974, Warner suffered a stroke that left him blind and enfeebled. During the next several years, he gradually lost the ability to speak and became unresponsive to friends and relatives.[181] Finally, on August 13, 1978, Warner was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where he died of a heart inflammation (edema) on September 9.[34] He was 86 years old.[182][183] A funeral service was held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the synagogue to which many members of the Warner family belonged.[184][185] He was interred at Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.[185]
Warner left behind an estate estimated at $15 million.[186] Much of the Warner estate, including property and memorabilia, was bequeathed to his widow, Ann. However, Warner also left $200,000 to his estranged son, Jack Jr., perhaps in an effort to discourage him from contesting the will.[186] In the days following his death, newspaper obituaries recounted the familiar story of "the four brothers who left the family butcher shop for nickelodeons" and went on to revolutionize American cinema.[187] A front-page story in Warner's adopted hometown of Youngstown featured accounts of the family's pre-Hollywood struggles in Ohio, describing how Warner drove a wagon for his father's business when he was only seven years old.[34] The late movie mogul was widely eulogized for his role in "shaping Hollywood's 'Golden Age'".[34]
Several months after Warner's death, a more personal tribute was organized by the Friends of the Libraries at the University of Southern California.[187] The event, called "The Colonel: An Affectionate Remembrance of Jack L. Warner", drew Hollywood notables such as entertainers Olivia de Havilland and Debbie Reynolds, and cartoon voice actor Mel Blanc.[188] Blanc closed the event with a rendition of Porky Pig's famous farewell, "A-bee-a-bee-a-bee–that's all, folks."[188] In recognition of his contributions to the motion picture industry, Warner was accorded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard.[189] He is also represented on Canada's Walk of Fame (where he was inducted in 2004) in Toronto, which honours outstanding Canadians from all fields.[190]
Warner is portrayed by Richard Dysart in Bogie (1980), Michael Lerner in This Year's Blonde (1980), Jason Wingreen in Malice in Wonderland (1985), Mike Connors in James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997), Tim Woodward in RKO 281 (1999), Len Kaserman in The Three Stooges (2000), Richard M. Davidson in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), Mark Rydell in James Dean (2001), Danny Wells in Gleason (2002), Barry Langrishe in The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004), Ben Kingsley in Life (2015) and Stanley Tucci in Feud (2017).