Jack Warner

American film executive

• Born: August 2, 1892
• Birthplace: London, Ontario, Canada
• Died: September 9, 1978
• Place of death: Hollywood, California

Warner and his brothers produced the first motion picture with synchronized sound: The Jazz Singer (1927). As head of Warner Bros. Studios, he was instrumental in the film industry’s relaxation of strict censorship codes after producing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(1966) and earlier risk-taking films such as A Streetcar Named Desire(1951). He challenged the industry norm by including in those films words traditionally deemed inappropriate for film audiences.

Early Life

Jack Warner was born in London, Ontario, Canada, the ninth child of Benjamin and Pearl Warner, who had emigrated from Krasnaschiltz, Poland. The young Warner returned with his parents and siblings to Baltimore, where his father worked first as cobbler and then as the owner of a grocery store in Youngstown, Ohio. Warner began his entertainment career as a singer at weddings, lodge meetings, and benefits, and he used the stage name Leon Zuardo. He sang at the Youngstown Opera House on Sunday nights and then joined with Pike Rickard to perform at vaudeville theaters in the Midwest. After the first tour, Warner quit.

Meanwhile, Jack’s brother, Sam Warner, purchased a Kinetoscope, an early device for viewing film strips. He also bought a print of The Great Train Robbery (1903), the hit film showing in nickelodeons, and featured the film in several nearby towns. However, their copy of the film burned accidentally. Sam, along with brothers Abe and Harry, who financed the operation, leased a building in 1904 in New Castle and turned it into the Cascade Theater, which would become their first silent film theater. The brothers soon began to distribute films in Pittsburgh through their new business, Duquesne Amusement and Supply Company, an enterprise that would become Warner Bros. Pictures. In 1909, the brothers sold their company to Thomas Edison’s firm Motion Pictures Patents Company, which was gaining a monopoly on film distribution.

Within a few months, however, Jack and Sam went back into distribution with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. In San Francisco, Jack met and then married Irma Solomons. The couple had one child, Jack Warner, Jr., who was born in 1916.

With the coming of World War I, Jack and Sam were assigned to make a film for the U.S. Army Signal Corps on sexually transmitted diseases. After completing the film, Harry got the film rights to My Four Years in Germany (1918), and Jack and Sam oversaw its production; the movie became a big hit. The brothers established a studio in Los Angeles, making serials and comedies starring Monty Banks, and then they built their own studio in Hollywood at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Bronson Avenue. Warner Bros. Studios was established in 1918 and incorporated in 1923.

Life’s Work

Warner’s initial job with the company was to oversee KFWB, the radio branch of Warner Bros. Sam, the better educated of the brothers, took charge of film production and supervised the studio’s investment in sound pictures, including the first talkie, The Jazz Singer (1927). He died the day before the film’s premiere, leaving Jack in charge of Hollywood production. Harry gained control of First National, a more prestigious filmmaking studio, and First National and Warner Bros. maintained separate studios for two years.

Warner became a powerful force in Hollywood, joining the ranks of studio heads such as Louis Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn (who would form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, or MGM). While he was cruel to his employees and indifferent to his family, his public persona was that of an affable clown specializing in one-liners and comic put-downs. In the tradition of studio bosses, he brooked no opposition. One of his best lines was, “I don’t want just a bunch of yes men, I want people who say no when I say no.”

In 1930, the production of Warner Bros.’s quality pictures were moved to the Burbank studio, and the shorts and B-pictures were made at Warner’s Sunset Boulevard studio. Warner appointed Darryl F. Zanuck head of production and made Hal Wallis a producer. One of the studio’s first successes was Little Caesar (1931), which inspired many other gangster films. There remains, however, widespread disagreement over who deserves credit for the film. Warner claimed that he read the novel, Wallis said that he had recommended the novel to Warner, and Mervyn LeRoy, who directed the film, asserted that he had convinced Warner to buy the screen rights.

Overall, however, the 1930’s were turbulent years for Warner. First, he divorced Irma and married Ann Page. He replaced Zanuck with Wallis and had problems with several of his stars, including Bette Davis and James Cagney. Also, he helped the recruitment efforts of the U.S. armed forces. In the 1940’s, Warner and Wallis ended their professional relationship after Warner beat Wallis to the podium and accepted the Academy Award for Best Picture for Casablanca (1942). Warner assumed control of studio production, and the quality of the Warner Bros. films declined. Always a true patriot, Warner also became involved in politics, and when he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he named several innocent screenwriters as communists. A staunch Republican, he was a close friend of Richard M. Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

To his credit, Warner was largely responsible for loosening censorship regulations. The Warner Bros. film A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), based on the famous Tennessee Williams play, and, later, the film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), based on Edward Albee’s equally famous play, defied industry “moral” codes. During the 1950’s he also profited, despite his initial opposition to the medium, from television productions, notably in the detective and cowboy genres. In 1956 he sold Warner Bros.’s pre-1949 films to United Artists Television. That sale paled in comparison to his sale, also in 1956, of Warner Bros. itself to another corporation, in which he had a controlling interest. When his family found out about the deal, they felt betrayed and never made peace with him.

After a near-fatal accident abroad, Warner returned to Hollywood. In 1958 he fired his son, Warner, Jr., who had been working for the studio. Warner went on to produce more films, and he began receiving awards for his contributions to the film industry. These awards included the Irving G. Thalberg Award (1959), the Cecil B. DeMille Award (1965), and the Honorary Life Membership Award given by the Directors Guild of America (1965).

After producing the hit film My Fair Lady (1964), Warner sold his Warner Bros. shares to Seven Arts Productions for $32 million in 1966, and then he turned to producing stage plays, which failed at the box office. He continued as an independent film producer into the early 1970’s. He died of an edema on September 9, 1978, in Los Angeles, at the age of eighty-six.

Significance

Warner knew what the public wanted in entertainment, and he gave it to them, producing more than three hundred films, many of which won Oscars. He ran one of the most important film studios during the heyday of the Hollywood studio era. In some ways his opposition to unions, especially the Screenwriters Guild, and his legendary battles with many Hollywood stars led to the demise of the very studio system he helped to build and maintain.

Because of Warner’s work in producing risk-taking films that defied film industry moral codes, Jack Valenti, who headed the Motion Picture Association of America from 1966 to 2004, considered him the “father” of the voluntary film ratings system. The ratings system that was adopted would eventually help the studios, including Warner Bros., as they could now market their films to particular audiences based on the ratings system itself.

Bibliography

Dick, Bernard F. Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Details about the collaboration between Wallis, the Warner Bros. production chief, and Warner during the 1930’s, suggesting that Wallis was responsible for the quality of the films. Also contains Wallis’s view of the infamous Oscar night when Warner raced to the stage to receive the Oscar for Best Picture for Casablanca.

Sperling, Cass Warner, and Cork Millner, with Jack Warner, Jr. Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. Focuses on the four Warner brothers and is critical of the sale of Warner Bros. Includes the section “Other Voices,” which includes comments by the Warner family, especially by Warner, Jr., and by actors such as Ronald Reagan.

Thomas, Bob. Clown Prince of Hollywood: The Antic Life and Times of Jack L. Warner. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990. Spiced with anecdotes, Warner quips, and an exhaustive bibliography. A good corrective to Warner’s autobiography. Many photos.

Warner, Jack L., with Dean Jennings. My First One Hundred Years in Hollywood: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1965. Warner’s autobiography omits many pertinent details, glosses over some problems, and provides readers with some wonderful anecdotes. Contains many photos and a postscript from Ann Warner.