Sam Spiegel

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Sam Spiegel (born November 11, 1901 in Jarosław , Austria-Hungary , today Poland as Samuel P. Spiegel, † December 31, 1985 in St. Martin , French West Indies ), was an independent American film producer of Austrian origin. He is considered one of the last great personalities of the classic Hollywood era and one of the most important film producers in American film history .

As an independent and successful producer in the era of the studio system, he gained almost unlimited artistic freedom. Without the usual financial pressure to succeed, he also realized risky productions and broke new ground. Success proved him right: his films received 50 internationally renowned awards and 23 Oscars . He was personally awarded four times with an Oscar, one of them for his life's work due to the "consistently high quality of his productions."

Live and act

Sam Spiegel was born in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia . He studied at the University of Vienna and then went to Palestine for a longer stay . He was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair .

After his time in Palestine, Spiegel moved to the United States , where he lectured at the University of Berkeley in California . From there, Paul Bern , a person in charge of MGM , hired him in 1927 as editor for foreign film material. Having come into contact with the world of film in this way, he remained loyal to it throughout his life. He switched to Universal Pictures , which sent him to the European headquarters in Berlin to produce German and French adaptations of Universal films. In 1929 he took over the management of the European headquarters in Berlin.

After Adolf Hitler came to power , he first went to Austria , where he produced one of the best “emigrant films ” in Austria, Sonnenstrahl (1933), with Paul Fejos as director . Due to the deteriorating conditions in Austria, he soon emigrated first to France , where he continued to work as a film producer. After the occupation of France by the National Socialists in World War II , he went on to Great Britain , where he also produced films. Ultimately, he returned to the United States via Mexico in 1942 , where he found employment with 20th Century Fox . Under the pseudonym S. P. Eagle (an abstraction of his surname mirror ), which he kept around a decade, he produced there until 1947. In 1947 he founded with John Huston the Horizon Pictures and thus began his unique career as an unflinching film producer with art claim and risk tolerance. After a few films, some of which were perceived as idiosyncratic, he achieved his international breakthrough in 1954 with the eight-time Oscar-winning Die Faust im Nacken directed by Elia Kazan . After this and other successes, he enjoyed almost unlimited creative freedom as an independent producer, which he knew how to use.

During the Hollywood crisis of the 1950s, Hollywood turned to Great Britain for a while, where Oscar-winning works such as The Bridge on the Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) were created.

It won the Oscar three times in the “Best Film” category.

Since his time at Hashomer Hatzair in Palestine, Spiegel has closely followed developments surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel and maintained contacts from his time in Europe and Palestine, including the later high-ranking politicians Ariel Sharon and Golda Meir . He was also on friendly terms with Teddy Kollek , who was Mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993 and whom he knew from Vienna. He bequeathed a large part of his fortune to the city of Jerusalem , where the film school was named in his honor. In later years, Spiegel reflected more strongly on his faith and Zionism and visited a rabbi every week .

The Jerusalem Film School was named after him in 1996, The Sam Spiegel Film and Television School .

Quotes

“I have been saying for years that the level of the audience is much higher than the world's film producers and directors and directors think. And I always claim that you have to write up to the level of the audience and not write down patronizing. "

Filmography (selection)

Awards

literature

  • Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni: Sam Spiegel: The incredible life and times of Hollywood's most iconoclastic producer, the miracle worker who went from penniless refugee to show biz legend, and made possible The African Queen, On the waterfront, the bridge over the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia . New York etc .: Simon & Schuster 2003.
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. P. 474 f., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Ulrich: Sam Spiegel - producer . In Österreich Journal , issue 75 (August 31, 2009, online ( http://www.oesterreichjournal.at/Ausgabe/index_075.htm )), pp. 78–81.
  2. ^ Rudolf Ulrich: Austrians in Hollywood. Filmarchiv Austria Verlag , Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-901932-29-1 , p. 482
  3. ^ Armin Loacker: The forgotten names of the cinema. In: Joachim Riedl: Vienna, City of Jews. Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-552-05315-8 , p. 226
  4. ↑ Christian Berndt: Elaborate cinema with high standards. In: Calendar sheet. December 31, 2010, accessed December 31, 2010 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mirror, Sam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film producer
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Jarosław , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1985
Place of death St. Martin , French West Indies