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Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz (/ˈzænts/; February 28, 1921 – January 3, 2014) was an American film producer and record company executive. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and, in 1996, was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
Zaentz's film production career, primarily financed by the profits from Creedence Clearwater Revival, was marked by a dedication to the adaptation of novels. A prolific reader, Zaentz typically did not produce original screenplays. His final production, Goya's Ghosts, was an exception, being an original story by Jean-Claude Carrière and Miloš Forman.
Zaentz was born on February 28, 1921, in Passaic, New Jersey, the youngest of five. His parents were Polish Jewish immigrants.
As a child, Zaentz attended William B. Cruz Memorial school number 11 in Passaic. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Zaentz began realizing his passion for music by working for Jazz at the Philharmonic and record company head Norman Granz, a job that included managing concert tours for musicians such as Duke Ellington and Stan Getz. He studied at Rutgers after the war on the GI Bill.
In 1955 he joined Fantasy Records, for many years the largest independent jazz record label in the world. In 1967 Zaentz and other partners purchased the label from founders Max and Sol Weiss. The partners signed roots-rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), fronted by former Fantasy warehouseman John Fogerty.
Fantasy Records owned the distribution and publishing rights to CCR's music, so to extricate himself from his original contract with Fantasy, Fogerty signed away even more than the original contract had stipulated. Additionally, bad investments by Zaentz and Fantasy, seemingly on the group's behalf, cost CCR millions of dollars, some of which the group recouped through legal proceedings.
Songs about the experience on Fogerty's 1985 album Centerfield – "Zanz Kant Danz" and "Mr. Greed" – were thinly veiled slams at Zaentz. Defamation of character lawsuits followed for the lyric, "Zanz can't dance but he'll steal your money". The defamation issue was settled with Warner Bros. and Fogerty changing the title and lyric to "Vanz Kant Danz". Fogerty countersued for reimbursement of attorneys' fees and in a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, Fogerty v. Fantasy, 510 U.S. 517 (1994), he won.
Zaentz also unsuccessfully sued Fogerty for plagiarism, claiming that the melodic line in "The Old Man Down the Road" (on Centerfield) was a lift from the song "Run Through the Jungle" from CCR's 1970 album Cosmo's Factory; the song was written by Fogerty but Fantasy owned the copyright. Zaentz sought $140 million in damages but lost, in Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, when a jury found Fogerty not liable.
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Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz (/ˈzænts/; February 28, 1921 – January 3, 2014) was an American film producer and record company executive. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and, in 1996, was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
Zaentz's film production career, primarily financed by the profits from Creedence Clearwater Revival, was marked by a dedication to the adaptation of novels. A prolific reader, Zaentz typically did not produce original screenplays. His final production, Goya's Ghosts, was an exception, being an original story by Jean-Claude Carrière and Miloš Forman.
Zaentz was born on February 28, 1921, in Passaic, New Jersey, the youngest of five. His parents were Polish Jewish immigrants.
As a child, Zaentz attended William B. Cruz Memorial school number 11 in Passaic. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Zaentz began realizing his passion for music by working for Jazz at the Philharmonic and record company head Norman Granz, a job that included managing concert tours for musicians such as Duke Ellington and Stan Getz. He studied at Rutgers after the war on the GI Bill.
In 1955 he joined Fantasy Records, for many years the largest independent jazz record label in the world. In 1967 Zaentz and other partners purchased the label from founders Max and Sol Weiss. The partners signed roots-rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), fronted by former Fantasy warehouseman John Fogerty.
Fantasy Records owned the distribution and publishing rights to CCR's music, so to extricate himself from his original contract with Fantasy, Fogerty signed away even more than the original contract had stipulated. Additionally, bad investments by Zaentz and Fantasy, seemingly on the group's behalf, cost CCR millions of dollars, some of which the group recouped through legal proceedings.
Songs about the experience on Fogerty's 1985 album Centerfield – "Zanz Kant Danz" and "Mr. Greed" – were thinly veiled slams at Zaentz. Defamation of character lawsuits followed for the lyric, "Zanz can't dance but he'll steal your money". The defamation issue was settled with Warner Bros. and Fogerty changing the title and lyric to "Vanz Kant Danz". Fogerty countersued for reimbursement of attorneys' fees and in a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, Fogerty v. Fantasy, 510 U.S. 517 (1994), he won.
Zaentz also unsuccessfully sued Fogerty for plagiarism, claiming that the melodic line in "The Old Man Down the Road" (on Centerfield) was a lift from the song "Run Through the Jungle" from CCR's 1970 album Cosmo's Factory; the song was written by Fogerty but Fantasy owned the copyright. Zaentz sought $140 million in damages but lost, in Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, when a jury found Fogerty not liable.