Hollywood’s most hated movie mogul? Meet Jack Warner
Marking 100 Years of Warner Bros. means remembering the despised studio boss who battled his brothers, fought his stars, and left a ruthless legacy
Film Features Jack Warner
In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.
It’s sad to see the once mighty Warner Bros. studio celebrate its 100th anniversary in a state of chaos and disarray. Sold to a succession of bad partners beginning in 1990 in a process that culminated with the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger of 2000, Warner has spent the last 20 years shedding divisions and chasing the fool’s gold of comic book movie dollars while the value of the whole enterprise tanked and tanked and tanked.
In 2018, AT&T paid $85.4 billion for what was then Time Warner. In 2022, they sold WarnerMedia to Discovery for just $43 billion. On March 16, the combined valuation for the blended entity that emerged as WarnerDiscovery was only $34.4 billion.
The Warner brothers wouldn’t have stood for it.
Ah, the Warner brothers. They created a lasting enterprise that changed the course of world cinema by popularizing cinematic sound. Their list of tough-minded “golden era” classics includes White Heat, Casablanca, The Adventures Of Robin Hood, Now, Voyager, and Mildred Pierce. Their animators invented Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. For many historians, the Warners’ brash motion pictures of the 1930s and ’40s constitute commercial moviemaking’s greatest run.
The brothers hated each other. And everyone especially hated Jack.
Three enterprising moguls and their womanizing brother
Jack was the youngest Warner, and he was the only one born in North America rather than the small Jewish village of Krasnosielc, Poland. His brothers built a burgeoning exhibition enterprise in the 1910s, and then invited Jack into it. Jack slowly infected the entire host organism, in a process that took 30-plus years to pull off. He ended up running the whole show, using business moves that were just short of mafia measures to edge out his siblings. But before that, Jack had already offended every brother in sight.
Where Harry, Albert, and Samuel Warner were characterized by moral conservatism and old world reserve, Jack was a chronic womanizer who fancied himself a song and dance man—a comedian who just happened to run a movie studio. He’d had a brief career in vaudeville, where he failed miserably. According to Jack’s biographer Bob Thomas, his brother Sam told Jack to “Go out front where they pay the actors,” because “that’s where the money is.”
It was advice Jack heeded to spectacular effect. When Sam died prematurely from a sinus infection at age 40 during post-production on the partial talkie and breakaway hit The Jazz Singer, Jack became the unchallenged head of Warner film production, making him an unstoppable Hollywood force. His career lasted longer than any of Hollywood’s other founding moguls.
“He didn’t die. Jack killed him.”
If you can see past the horrific addiction of lead actor Al Jolson to performing in blackface, The Jazz Singer is a fascinating artifact. The plot concerns a cantor’s son named Jakie Rabinowitz, who shuns the old world values of tent and tabernacle for the bright lights of showbiz. It’s the Jack Warner story, with Jolson as Jack, and the other brothers embodied by Jakie’s old school rabbi father, slowly dying of apoplexy somewhere off camera, while Jakie lives it up on Broadway.
The analogy is imperfect of course, because there were other treacheries operating within the Warner clan. At the time of his death, Sam Warner had allegedly cut a deal to migrate Warner’s proprietary sound technology, called Vitaphone, over to Paramount—primarily so he could get out from under Albert’s thumb.
Warner artists like Bette Davis and Jimmy Cagney clashed with Jack for decades though—mostly about money, in battles that carved years off Cagney’s career, and which were fought to what amounted to a draw. The Warner directors and artists had a universally low opinion of Jack’s creative abilities, and an even lower opinion of his constant jokes. But Jack did get off a quip that has lasted. Informed by the press that his old contract star Ronald Reagan had just declared his intention to run for California’s governorship, Warner reportedly said, “No, no. Jimmy Stewart for governor. Ronald Reagan for best friend.”
It’s largely understood that producer Daryl F. Zanuck was the man most responsible for the gangsters, gun molls, and gams approach of Warner’s golden era, a fertile crescent from which sprouted Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis, Paul Muni, and Humphrey Bogart, amongst very many others. Still, Jack was obviously simpatico with the punchy product coming out in a volcanic spew under the Warner Bros. name. Brash and sassy was Jack’s whole approach to life—and as for gangsters, Jack notoriously bum-rushed the stage and accepted the 1942 Best Picture Oscar for Casablanca before Hal Wallis—the man who actually produced the movie—could even rise to his feet.
By far Jack’s greatest Don Corleone moment came in 1955, when he convinced his aging brothers Albert and Harry to sell all their shares in the company, for a windfall of $22 million, or around $250 million today. The hate between the brothers was so hot that Harry added a stipulation: Jack had to sell out too. The Warner era at Warner Bros. would have to end for them all at once.
Jack blithely agreed, then bought the studio back as soon as the deal closed, by arranging a quick million-dollar profit for his partners in collusion. He immediately installed himself as Warner’s president—Harry’s old job. Harry had a heart attack when he read the news in Variety, followed by a stroke a day after that. When Harry passed on in 1958, his widow Rea expressed her opinion succinctly: “He didn’t die,” she said, “Jack killed him.”
You must remember this…
While brother Harry should be remembered for his pioneering role in establishing the Warner brand and all it contains, his enmity toward his siblings, especially Jack, was so great it has become his legacy. He seems to have never liked Jack, whose second marriage he refused to attend, sending a note instead about how glad he was that their parents weren’t alive to see the day. An enduring image of corporate lore that could be apocryphal but embodies an inner truth anyway finds Harry chasing Jack around the Burbank lot, swinging a lead pipe at Jack’s head.
But Jolly Jack ultimately got the last laugh, because he lived in public, cultivated the press, and consequently wears the primary face of the Brothers Warner in the history books today. He lasted long enough at the studio that bears his name to battle with director Mike Nichols over the profane content of the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton classic, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and with Warren Beatty over the release strategy for Bonnie And Clyde. He was the only Old Hollywood mogul who can lay a justifiable claim to importance as New Hollywood took over.
New Hollywood, of course, eventually morphed into Corporate Hollywood, something that Jack would have been the best equipped of all the brothers to handle. Because Jack Warner was a survivor, after all, a trait ably demonstrated in 1958 when he lost control of his Alfa-Romeo after an evening of gambling in Cannes and was hit by a truck and thrown 40 feet from the car. With Jack in a coma, his son, Jack Jr., who worked at the studio, told the media his father was too ill for photographs, leading to reports that Jack’s death was imminent. When Jack recovered he fired his own son for suggesting to the press that he’d been near death. The episode was Jack in miniature: he was ruthless, reckless, and larger than life, and while he often left a burning wreck behind him, Jack Warner always lived to fight—with his brothers or his stars or other studio executives—another day.
80 Comments
He was also well-known for squelching the artistic desires of the actors in his employ:(yes, I’m well aware that particular version is butchered due to content concerns, and if anyone can find a full version in decent quality I’d be very grateful)
Does it doesn’t end with Daffy shooting himself in the head, then popping up and saying, “You gotta kill yourself to sell a movie in this town!”?
J.L. will hear of this!!
“An enduring image of corporate lore that could be apocryphal but embodies an inner truth anyway finds Harry chasing Jack around the Burbank lot, swinging a lead pipe at Jack’s head.”Yes, and then the guard caught them and locked them back up in the water tower for 50 years, we all know the story, jeez.
Yes, but why did they lock their sister Dot in with them?
I’ve no idea where you’re sourcing your pictures from, but those are NOT the Warner Bros:
Or the Warner Sister.
Dot.
If you can see past the horrific addiction of lead actor Al Jolson to performing in blackface, The Jazz Singer is a fascinating artifact.Having never seen The Jazz Singer, is this voice-to-text beating y’all’s asses again, or was it a plot point that he was addicted to putting on blackface?
It’s not a plot point, it was just a popular form of entertainment at the time.
Yeah, your lack of reading comprehension is not the writer’s fault.
I can’t delete my comment apparently.
Just ignore me.
I think it’s just a turn of phrase. Jolson loved blackface as much as DeSantis loves Covid.
You wouldn’t be wrong, Bob—Blackface was a part of Jolson’s act for a long time! The play and movie The Jazz Singer were based on writer Samson Raphaelson’s experience watching Jolson perform in blackface in the musical Robinson Crusoe, Jr. on stage. Here’s a pre-The Jazz Singer Jolson performing one of his hits, “A Plantation Song”…in blackface:Please Don’t @ Me—I Provide This Number for Historical Purposes OnlyBlackface and Jazz were a part of “low-class” entertainment of the time to the White mainstream, which were embraced by youthful audiences wanting something more exciting than the dull, respectable music their parents listened to. That added a socioeconomic element to the story (Raphaelson’s “The Day of Atonement”) which started it all.In one of those weird twists of fate, the non-musical play The Jazz Singer starred George Jessel, who was supposed to star in the film version as well. But unlike the story and play, the movie resolves the conflict between Jacob the Cantor’s son and Jack the Jazz Singer by having Jack ultimately find a way to do both, and retain the love of his shiksa girlfriend (and manager) Mary Dale—one of the reasons Jessel gave for having turned down the role! So after approaching comedy actor Eddie Cantor (who offered to help resolve with problems with Jessel), Warner’s production chief at the time Darryl F. Zanuck (who went on to make 20th Century-Fox the movie powerhouse it became) hired Jolson, Raphaelson’s choice in the first place and a much bigger star than Jessel at the time, instead for $75,000 (which is even good money now, let alone in 1927!).
I had to read that sentence so many times, and I’m still not sure if I understand it.
I think they’re referencing Jolson’s real life career, which seems to mostly consist of blackface performances of which this is just the most famous. Odd choice of words for it though. I’m drawing a blank as to what might have been corrected to “addiction”.
‘If you can see past Al Jolson’s predilection for performing in blackface…’ would’ve been a better way of phrasing this idea.
Ah, that makes sense. I legitimately didn’t understand what Ray was trying to say, lol. Predilection, practice, habit… so many choices could’ve been made here aside from the clunky sentence construction.
I thought he was saying “addition”, as in “If you can see past the horrific addition of lead actor Al Jolson to performing in blackface”. Unfortunately, jazz and Blackface for White performers at the time was certainly not unheard of, if not common—Bing Crosby, who also became a star singing jazz songs, never performed in Blackface…….as far as I know of, anyway.
It’s more likely meant to be “If you can see past the horrific addition of lead actor Al Jolson [omit “to”] performing in blackface, The Jazz Singer is a fascinating artifact.”
Jolson literally performs in blackface in the movie. The writer isn’t talking about what he did outside the movie. (Also, blackface was common at the time, so it wasn’t just Jolson’s predilection.)
It’s a colorful way of saying he did it a lot. It’s not that hard to figure out.
The writer most likely mistyped “addition.” Like: “If you see past the horrific addition of Mickey Rooney in yellowface, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a wonderful movie.” Not sure why that “to” is there, though.
The presence of “to” is why that theory doesn’t hold water for me.
I don’t think anything will be settled until some kind of AV Club Rosetta Stone is unearthed.
Al Jolson was considered by some critics as the “king of blackface.” I don’t know how much he actually performed in blackface but it’s possible that they’re referring to Al Jolson having a “horrific addiction to performing in blackface” as an exaggerated way of saying he did it a lot.Edit: Just saw someone else said the same thing. I can’t delete so I’ll just leave this here.
Hey, give him a break, Ninja Robot Pirate!Ray Greene (I guess he’s one of the FNGs) hasn’t completely trained the Kinja AI that’s replacing him yet.
Chuck Jones has a great story about Jack walking into the animation department in a sort of a surprise inspection. He was furious when he saw the writers staring off into space thinking up ideas instead of typing. He wanted to hear the click-clack of typewriters, dammit. After he left in a huff, they all conspired to set up a buzzer activated by the receptionist up front for the next time he’d darken their door. Sure enough he showed up again unannounced. The buzzer went off, the writers quickly started pounding out gibberish on their typewriters and Jack couldn’t be more pleased.
Jones also said that when the Warners bought the Schlesinger animation studio, Jack Warner gave them a brief welcoming speech where he said something like, “I don’t know much about animation, but they tell me you guys make Mickey Mouse.” Jones also says Warner shut down the studio in the 60s when he found out they didn’t make Mickey Mouse cartoons, and honestly to this day I’m not sure how much of that claim is a joke.
…Most of it, I suspect.That speech sounds more like Jack Warner telling a joke that fell flat (as so many of his jokes did!). While he was an utter rat-bastard, Jack Warner certainly wasn’t stupid.Also, Warners held onto their animation and short subjects divisions until October 10, 1969, long after most other studios had dropped theirs. About the only studio that hung onto animation longer was Walt Disney:MGM animation closed down on May 15, 1957—whereupon William Hanna and Joseph Barbera hired most of the ex-MGM animation people to form Hanna-Barbera Productions!Paramount’s animation arm, originally Fleischer Studios but renamed it Famous Studios after David Fleischer left to run Columbia Pictures’ animation arm, and Max Fleischer was shown the door partially thanks to the failure of their second animated feature, Mister Bug Goes to Town.Columbia’s animation studio was originally Screen Gems, which was later reorganized into its television arm somewhere between 1946 and 1949. Later Columbia cartoons were licensed from United Productions of America (UPA), who did “Gerald McBoing-Boing” (co-written by Bill Scott, later to write and voice Bullwinkle, from a Dr. Seuss story) and the MR. MAGOO cartoons, before finally releasing theatrical short versions of Hanna-Barbera’s output.Universal’s animation studio either lasted until 1935 when Walter Lantz went independent (though most of his subsequent output was through Universal); 1947 when Universal became Universal-International, and Lantz decided he’d rather hang onto the rights to Poochie the Pup, Andy Panda, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (yes, the one created by Walt Disney!), and Woody Woodpecker rather then hand them over to the new boss; or 1972 when Lantz finally stopped producing cartoons for Universal, United Artists, or television altogether. (Hence my qualifying “About” up top.)
I love the history of Warner cartoons and fondly remember how much the studio used to value it, publishing multiple books and referencing it in contemporary animation projects like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs in the 90s. Skip to today when streaming archives are randomly decimated with zero care to history or legacy. And no, dammit, I will not let this go!
There’s a new Blu-ray collection of classic shorts coming out next month, the Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Volume 1, curated by cartoon historian Jerry Beck and TimeWarnerMediaDiscovery+’s resident archivist and historian, George Feltenstein. No doubt there will be some double-dipping from the DVD releases, and some of the new-to-disc shorts apparently lack the original titles, but it still looks promising, and if it sells well maybe the “Volume 1″ won’t be misplaced optimism.Granted, it’s hard to be optimistic about anything in this day and age, but if you’re still capable of hope, that’s got to qualify as a little sliver of it shining through the Zaslavian mire.
You may appreciate this video if you’ve never seen it:
I totally get your point, and agree on principle, but if you’re expecting streaming platforms to act as extensive, definitive film archives, that’s just not realistic at all. They were never intended to be that, and will never be that. Streaming platforms are marketing and DRM tools. That’s all.
Nope. Harry Cohn (Columbia Pictures) beats out Jack. May be an apocryphal story but at Cohn’s funeral which was attended by most of Hollywood, Red Skelton said, “Just goes to show you. Give the people what they want and they’ll turn out for it.”Jack’s biographer, Bob Thomas, also wrote an entertaining bio of Harry Cohn (from which the above is taken). Long out of print I have a dog eared copy in my collection. Titled “King Cohn.”
Yep, as soon as I saw “Hollywood’s most hated movie mogul”, Cohn was the first person that came to mind.
I thought of Louis B. Meyer, Judy Garland’s tormentor. Face it, none of these guys were very benevolent.
I thought Darryl F. Zanuck myself, who was, in addition to being a complete SoB, such a notorious cocksman sexual predator that I’m sure Harvey Weinstein has his picture hanging up in his jail cell.
Came here to say this.
A Marx brothers stage performance was interrupted by the announcement that Woodrow Wilson had died, and Groucho responded, “How can they tell?”
I’ve heard that one attributed to Dorothy Parker about Calvin Coolidge.
I bet one of us is right, although I have no idea which one.
Can’t wait to give it a read, thanks! https://archive.org/details/kingcohnlifetime0000thom
Jack Warner not only rushed the stage for the Casablanca Oscar, he had his underlings seated near Wallis and put them under orders to make a wall to keep Wallis from reaching the stage first (or at all.)Christ, what an asshole.
When Jack recovered he fired his own son for suggesting to the press that he’d been near death.
So, he’s Logan Roy?
25 years ago, Warner Brothers’ 75th anniversary was a triumph. They created a traveling week-long film festival featuring films from specific decades each day. Look at this lineup:
https://letterboxd.com/alexfung/list/warner-bros-75th-anniversary-festival-of/I bought a festival pass and saw 2-4 movies a day all week. It was amazing. If you’d told 1998 Me what Warners’ 100th anniversary was going to be like, I might’ve cried.
I’m sorry for your loss.
>If you’d told 1998 Me what Warners’ 100th anniversary was going to be like, I might’ve cried.Yeah man, it totally sucks. Now you have to pay a whole $15 to watch 95% of Warner’s catalog any time you want from the comfort of your home. The future blows, dude.
This never really got around to detailing just how much of a sexual harasser/predator Jack Warner was. An offhanded “womanizing” descriptor does not come close to capturing this… In 2023 we should be able to call him what he actually was.
He was right about one thing, Stewart should have been governor.
I still think Louis B Mayer wins all around SOB. Jack Warner was awful, but in a cutthroat dollars-and-cents kind of way, arrogant and greedy and ignorant. Mayer physically and sexually abused his actors, many of whom like Judy Garland were underage. Fed them pills, controlled every aspect of their lives, and wrecked careers if they didn’t accede to his wishes. The only difference was Mayer was smart enough to foster enough good relationships with some of his actors that even today for every accusation against him for child molestation and rape, there is another anecdote by a different actor talking about how he was a father figure to them, which seems almost by intent to build an insulating wall around him. And then there are the crimes he may have helped cover up, including a murder.
I recall hearing that Jack Warner wanted the “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men” musical number cut out of 1776 so as not to offend his pal Richard Nixon, and even ordered the print destroyed, but it was secretly saved by someone involved with the film and was thus eventually able to be restored. Says a lot about how hated Warner was for someone to do that behind his back.
Lots of cut footage from films was secretly saved by people involved in the production. Such “lost” treasures were often traded in secret (because technically they’re stolen property). There’s a well-known story about a musical number cut from “A Star Is Born” which was retrieved from a private collector with the aid of law enforcement for that film’s 1981 restoration.
a musical number cut from “A Star Is Born” which was retrieved from a private collector with the aid of law enforcementJust take my UP vote, Jon Campbell.
As I recall, 1776 (which he made as an independent producer after retiring from Warner’s) was viewed by him as his baby, his personal “gift” to American culture and history or whatever. When it bombed (along the lines of his other last big hurrah, Camelot), he decided it was finally time to leave the business.
1776 is not a very good movie, if I’m honest—it’s faithful to the stage play, but that’s part of the problem. It feels like a stage play with largely the original stage cast, directed to act like they were performing in front of an audience instead of the camera. William Daniels, who’d been acting in films and television since the mid-1950s, sings “Is Anybody There?”—and the camera loses him for half the song because he was directed to sing it at the back of the Continental Congress set at night with almost no lighting on him, while the camera’s firmly parked in front! You just see this tiny figure gesticulating in the gloom while he’s at the most passionate part of the song….Daniels at least knew enough to moderate his performance for film—a lot of the other cast who’d been in the play but didn’t have a lot of film experience project to the rafters while the camera’s in close on them, and director Peter H. Hunt, whose first film or television project this was (he’d directed the stage show), didn’t know enough to get them to moderate or to back the camera the Hell away from them!
Most hated mogul? More than Harvey Weinstein?Also it is crazy to think that less than 100 years ago a rich 40 year old could die of a sinus infection.
Cocaine does long term damage.
Could be, I also looked it up and he also died the year before penicillin was invented so that probably didn’t help.
Unlike Weinstein, he got away with it.
Before antibiotics it wasn’t uncommon to die of simple infections. A small cut could kill you.
culminated with the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger of 2000To be fair, the concept of merging a movie studio with an internet company must’ve seemed like genius in 2000.
No it didn’t…AOL Acquires Time-Warner In Largest-Ever Expenditure Of Pretend Internet Moneyhttps://www.theonion.com/aol-acquires-time-warner-in-largest-ever-expenditure-of-1819565452
The Onion knew better, but tons of media dooes didn’t. Craig Kilbourn at the time mentioned that Time/Warner was changing its name to “AOL’s Bitch.”
All of these stupid mergers, huge corporations with supposedly the top minds in law, consulting, mbas etc advising them. And they still make boneheaded business moves. Yet the CEOs get golden parachutes and disgustingly high pay packages. The board of directors is filled with other uber rich people getting paid a pretty penny to effectively rubber stamp everything. Being good at your job, working hard to get where you are…that is for the poors (meaning anyone not born to a multimillioniare family). For the rich…its just they tell themselves they are smarter because of how much money they have, that they work just as hard….and then spend millions to try and make everyone else believe it. Like anyone on this comments page could run WB better than it has been run over the last 20 years. If not better…at the least, not worse.
It did to most everybody not involved in New Media—Yo…MTV Raps! pointing to The Onion’s comment is what people who were Internet and Web 2.0-savvy thought, but all the Old Media “Smart Set”? Pure genius—it’ll get all those AOL eyeballs onto Time-Warner movies and television! I didn’t see that much Old Media hurrahing again until Quibi came around. Anybody who actually uses their phones to watch videos knew that was a disaster in the making, but all those “smart” television and movie producers? Thought it was brilliant—even though they didn’t pick up a single New Media producer. Felicia Day talked about taking a meeting with the Production Team at Quibi and they barely knew who she was, and had zero idea of what she was talking about. Wil Wheaton couldn’t even get a meeting—yes, it’s Wil Wheaton, but they thought he’d fallen off the face of the Earth after Wesley Crusher left ST:TNG!
Jack Warner could be one nasty sonofabitch (the story of him basically swindling his brothers out of their own company is legendary), but overall the guy’s studio consistently cranked out some pretty good movies. He also was pretty up front about the kind of guy he was.
By comparison, Louis B. Mayer, while also running a studio that cranked out spectacular classics like they were making widgets, could also be a vindictive, life and career wrecking backstabber. He too was a right winger, but he also maintained an insufferable, paternalistic, holier than thou attitude in the way he ran things. He also eschewed the kinds of gritty “social message” pictures Warners made in favor of sentimental schmaltz like the Andy Hardy series.Howerver, if one guy gets the prize for most despised mogul, it’s probably actually Harry Cohn, a guy reputed to have actual ties to organized crime. A guy who exploited Rita Hayworth so thoroughly she supposedly ran around the studio lot shouting, “I’m finally free!” on the last day of her contract. The guy most associated with the old joke that his funeral had one of the largest turnouts Hollywood had ever seen, largely because everyone wanted to make sure he was actually dead. Or as Red Skelton is supposed to have put it:“It proves what Harry always said: Give the public what they want and they’ll come out for it.”Now, on the plus side, he’s said to have kept the Three Stooges working after the rest of the executives at the studio wanted to cancel their long running serials, so the guy couldn’t have been all bad.
You mean a guy who was born in 1892, and a Hollywood executive who built one of the most recognized studio names was a repugnant, vile person?
Shock!
So, in The Groucho Letters, Mr. Marx published a sort of cease-and-desist from Warner Brothers. They were upset that the Marxes were making a movie called A Night in Casablanca. Groucho’s reply was along the lines of “I don’t think anyone is going to confuse Harpo with Ingmar Bergman” and went on to theorize that he should sue, since the Marx Brothers were, professionally, brothers before the Warners were.I don’t think Warner ever replied.
Ingrid Bergman. No one would confuse her with Ingmar either.
Oh my god. Can’t believe I typed Ingmar. Jeez.I really do know the difference. Heck, probably even Warner knew.
Brains are jerks, always messing with you. I will say that the idea of a Bergman substitution in Casablanca is not without its intrigues. Sure, Ingmar wasn’t an actor himself, but that just adds to the fun!
Well, sure! Jack Warner didn’t want to shag Ingmar Bergman….
My favorite Jack Warner story:Jack Warner passed over casting Julie Andrews in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady despite the fact she originated the role on Broadway because he wanted a star. By the early 1960s Andrews was definitely not an unknown: the original cast recording was the highest selling album in 1956 and in 1957 over 100 million people (or 60% of the US population) tuned in to see her play the titular character in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s television production of Cinderella. But Jack Warner wanted Audrey Hepburn. In comes Walt Disney who offered Andrews the lead role in a new film he was developing called Mary Poppins. Disney even agreed to delay filming as she was three months pregnant when he offered her the role.Fast forward to the 1965 Golden Globes where both Andrews and Hepburn were nominated for Best Actress and Andrews won (she would go on to win the Oscar, too, while Hepburn wasn’t even nominated). She ended her acceptance speech by saying this:“Finally my thanks to a man who made a wonderful movie and who made all this possible in the first place: Mr. Jack Warner.”And Jack Warner was in the audience.
Ain’t no savagery like British Dame savagery.
Geez, I thought this story was going to be the one where Julie Andrews got on the Warners Lot one morning after finding out she wouldn’t be cast as Eliza Doolittle, and yelling in her very loud, very carrying voice, “AND A BLOODY GOOD MORNING TO YOU TOO, MR. WARNER!” She kept doing that, along with more obscene comments that sadly weren’t recorded for posterity, until Security showed up and invited her to leave….Anybody who knows Julie Andrews knows she had a bawdy sense of humor, and curses like a sailor when she’s angry or upset. Carol Burnett was shocked and delighted to find this out when they first met, and Blake Edwards claimed that was why he fell in love with her. Rock Hudson reportedly didn’t like it a bit, though—for a gay men he was certainly uptight as all get-out, wasn’t he?
Jack was a nice guy compared to Harry Cohn at Columbia.
I think the point was that every Hollywood movie mogul was a complete SoB.
And also the story of how he had Chester Himes thrown off the lot because….