finest phase, showing considerable courage by making Gentle-
men’s Agreement (1947), a film that attacked anti-Semitism, and
Pinky (1949), a movie that dealt with racism in America.
He continued to produce critical and commercial suc-
cesses during the early 1950s with films such as All About Eve
(1950) and Viva Zapata! (1952), and he made yet another con-
tribution to the movies when he brought CinemaScope to
Hollywood. Finally, in 1956, he chose to become an inde-
pendent producer, releasing his films through Twentieth Cen-
tury–Fox. He was not terribly successful, but he came through
when the studio needed a hit, making the big-budget block-
buster The Longest Day (1962), just as Twentieth Century–Fox
was hemorrhaging from the
CLEOPATRA
(1963) disaster.
Asked to return to the helm of the studio he had founded,
the old mogul rode to the rescue—at least temporarily. He
became president and appointed his son, Richard Darryl
Zanuck, to his old job as vice president in charge of produc-
tion. Zanuck guided the company out of the financial desert
thanks to the huge success of The Sound of Music (1965), but
by the late 1960s, several major bombs began to bring prof-
its down again.
The last film Zanuck personally produced was Tora! Tora!
Tora! (1970), an attempt at duplicating the success of The
Longest Day. Though some of the film was truly spectacular,
it was neither a critical nor a commercial hit, though footage
from it has often been used in subsequent war movies. Mean-
while, Zanuck was caught in a bitter battle for control of the
studio. His son was forced out of the company, but he hung
on, eventually resigning under pressure in 1971. He became
chairman emeritus, and was finally put out to pasture.
See also
CINEMASCOPE
;
GENTLEMEN
’
S AGREEMENT
;
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
;
RIN TIN TIN
;
SCHENCK
,
JOSEPH
M
.;
TWENTIETH CENTURY
–
FOX
;
WARNER BROS
.;
ZANUCK
–
BROWN
.
Zanuck–Brown The highly successful producing team
of Richard Darryl Zanuck (1934– ) and David Brown
(1916– ) has given birth to 15 films, among them a number
of Hollywood’s biggest hits, including The Sting (1973), Jaws
(1975), The Verdict (1982), and Cocoon (1985).
Richard Zanuck, the better-known member of the team,
is the son of the late Darryl F. Zanuck, the longtime head of
Twentieth Century–Fox. Brought up in the movie business,
the younger Zanuck was given the opportunity to assist in
the production of such Fox films as The Sun Also Rises (1957)
before becoming a producer in his own right and making
such movies as Compulsion (1959) and The Chapman Report
(1962). He also worked directly with his father on the epic
war film The Longest Day (1962), eventually rising to become
the head of production at Fox in 1967 and, later, the com-
pany’s president, in 1969. It was a short-lived reign, however,
as he was dumped in 1970. After a short tenure at Warner
Bros., he and David Brown teamed up and released their first
films in 1973.
David Brown had long been a member of the Twentieth
Century–Fox management team, heading up the story
department in 1952 after an early career in publishing (his
wife, Helen Gurley Brown, succeeded him as editor of Cos-
mopolitan magazine). During his tenure at Fox, he became a
top executive, working in tandem with both Darryl Zanuck
and, later, Richard Zanuck.
The Zanuck–Brown partnership did not produce all hits
or high-gloss efforts. Their first film was a low-budget hor-
ror movie titled Sssssss (1973), followed by a cheap exploita-
tion film, Willie Dynamite (1973). Their third film of that
year, The Sting, starring
PAUL NEWMAN
and
ROBERT RED
-
FORD
, was a critical and box-office smash, putting them
firmly on the Hollywood map.
To the producers’ credit, their box-office bombs, such as
The Black Windmill (1974), MacArthur (1977), and Target
(1985), are hardly boring and did not flop for want of trying.
Significantly, Zanuck and Brown have sometimes been willing
to invest in untried, but creative people. For instance, they
gave a young
STEVEN SPIELBERG
one of his early breaks when
they allowed him to direct The Sugarland Express (1974).
Although the film received generally favorable reviews, it died
at the box office. It was worth Zanuck-Brown’s investment,
however, because they called on Spielberg again to direct
Jaws. Zanuck-Brown also took a chance and made Cocoon, a
movie starring a cast of elderly actors, directed by the rela-
tively young Ron Howard, and turned it into a major hit.
The Zanuck–Brown strategy was extremely conservative
at times, conforming, for example, to the Hollywood pen-
chant for sequels with Jaws 2 (1978) and Cocoon 2 (1988).
In 1988, after a 15-year partnership, Zanuck-Brown was
dissolved, and the two producers went their separate ways.
See also
TWENTIETH CENTURY
–
FOX
;
ZANUCK
,
DARRYL F
.
Zemeckis, Robert L. (1952– ) Robert Zemeckis is
slick, commercial, unfailingly on target. He makes movies,
not films. More cash cow than artiste, Zemeckis has sur-
passed even
STEVEN SPIELBERG
on occasion in his ability to
produce the “right” seasonal blockbuster. Zemeckis is the
personification of what, for most people, Hollywood means.
Born in Chicago on May 14, 1952, and educated at
Northern Illinois University, he attended the University of
Southern California (USC) to major in film at a school with
close industry ties, and it was at USC that he met his collab-
orator, Bob Gale. Together they worked on such television
series as McCloud and The Night Stalker. By 1979, they were
writing the screenplay for the goofiest movie Spielberg ever
made, 1941, which flopped at the box office. Nonetheless, it
was funny, for those patient enough to stay with it, to see the
Japanese find their compass and the jitterbug sequence at the
center of the picture.
The first two films Zemeckis directed didn’t earn much
attention: I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) was followed by
Used Cars (1980), the first of these cashing in on Beatles nos-
talgia. Zemeckis began to hit his stride, however, with
Romancing the Stone (1984), with
KATHLEEN TURNER
and
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
, which was popular enough to produce a
sequel (directed by Lewis Teague), Jewel of the Nile (1985).
Zemeckis called on Kathleen Turner again to use her voice
for the cartoon character Jessica in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
ZEMECKIS, ROBERT L.
477