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Albert Zugsmith
Albert Zugsmith (April 24, 1910 – October 26, 1993) was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialized in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
With a background in music promotion (Ted Weems, Paul Whiteman), public relations (one of his clients in Depression-era Chicago was Al Capone), journalism, and brokering communication properties (radio, newspaper, early television), Zugsmith became independently wealthy and began producing films at RKO during the Howard Hughes years. Zugsmith's most significant credits are a string of four genre masterpieces produced in the late 1950s, all for Universal Pictures: the science-fiction classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, and the camp exploitation films (produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) High School Confidential and The Girl in the Kremlin. An archive of some of his shooting scripts and screenplays are housed in the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa.
Zugsmith was a journalist, publicist, and lawyer. In 1939 he moved in to brokering sales of communication properties like newspapers and radio and television stations; he was very successful, making up to $250 million worth of sales, and became a millionaire from his commissions. He was a film buff, and wanted to move into film producing.
In 1947, Zugsmith represented Jerry Siegel (with whom he served in World War II) and Joe Shuster in their lawsuit against National Comics. Siegel and Shuster were seeking $5 million and the return of the rights to their creation Superman. They ended up settling out of court for $100,000, and National retained the rights. Shuster would later speculate that Zugsmith had cut a deal with National without his clients' knowledge.
Zugsmith formed American Pictures Corporation, along with Peter Miller, Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen. They planned to make six films a year for five years out of a fund of $3.5 million.
They did a three-picture deal with RKO to make Captive Women (1952), Sword of Venus (1953), and Port Sinister (1953). No film cost more than $100,000.
It was a film he made for Columbia that established him - Invasion, U.S.A. (1952), which earned profits of over a million dollars. He followed it with Paris Model (1953), and Top Banana (1954, starring Phil Silvers), both comedies.
Zugsmith's success saw him receive a long-term contract at Universal. While there he acted as a script doctor for several Universal-International films and produced Female on the Beach (1955), a melodrama with Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler; The Square Jungle (1955), a boxing film with Tony Curtis; Raw Edge (1956), a Western with Yvonne de Carlo and Rory Calhoun; Red Sundown (1956), a Western with Calhoun, directed by Jack Arnold; and Star in the Dust (1956), another Western with John Agar and Mamie Van Doren, directed by Charles F. Haas.
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Albert Zugsmith
Albert Zugsmith (April 24, 1910 – October 26, 1993) was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialized in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
With a background in music promotion (Ted Weems, Paul Whiteman), public relations (one of his clients in Depression-era Chicago was Al Capone), journalism, and brokering communication properties (radio, newspaper, early television), Zugsmith became independently wealthy and began producing films at RKO during the Howard Hughes years. Zugsmith's most significant credits are a string of four genre masterpieces produced in the late 1950s, all for Universal Pictures: the science-fiction classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, and the camp exploitation films (produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) High School Confidential and The Girl in the Kremlin. An archive of some of his shooting scripts and screenplays are housed in the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa.
Zugsmith was a journalist, publicist, and lawyer. In 1939 he moved in to brokering sales of communication properties like newspapers and radio and television stations; he was very successful, making up to $250 million worth of sales, and became a millionaire from his commissions. He was a film buff, and wanted to move into film producing.
In 1947, Zugsmith represented Jerry Siegel (with whom he served in World War II) and Joe Shuster in their lawsuit against National Comics. Siegel and Shuster were seeking $5 million and the return of the rights to their creation Superman. They ended up settling out of court for $100,000, and National retained the rights. Shuster would later speculate that Zugsmith had cut a deal with National without his clients' knowledge.
Zugsmith formed American Pictures Corporation, along with Peter Miller, Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen. They planned to make six films a year for five years out of a fund of $3.5 million.
They did a three-picture deal with RKO to make Captive Women (1952), Sword of Venus (1953), and Port Sinister (1953). No film cost more than $100,000.
It was a film he made for Columbia that established him - Invasion, U.S.A. (1952), which earned profits of over a million dollars. He followed it with Paris Model (1953), and Top Banana (1954, starring Phil Silvers), both comedies.
Zugsmith's success saw him receive a long-term contract at Universal. While there he acted as a script doctor for several Universal-International films and produced Female on the Beach (1955), a melodrama with Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler; The Square Jungle (1955), a boxing film with Tony Curtis; Raw Edge (1956), a Western with Yvonne de Carlo and Rory Calhoun; Red Sundown (1956), a Western with Calhoun, directed by Jack Arnold; and Star in the Dust (1956), another Western with John Agar and Mamie Van Doren, directed by Charles F. Haas.