Samuel Marx (film producer)

Samuel Marx (born January 26, 1902 in New York City , † March 2, 1992 in Los Angeles ) was an American film producer , screenwriter and writer .

life and work

Samuel Marx had worked as an assistant in the New York office of the film production company Universal Pictures from 1919 , where he met Irving Thalberg , who at that time was still working for Carl Laemmle , but moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924 . In 1930 Thalberg hired him for MGM as a manager and made him responsible for the script department. After Thalberg's death in 1936, Marx became a producer and produced two “ Lassie ” films for MGM, among other things . For the first of these, Homesickness , he hired the ten-year-old, still unknown Elizabeth Taylor in 1942 , for whom a contractual relationship with MGM was established that would last until 1959. Another film, produced by Marx for MGM was the musical comedy My husband wants to marry ( Grounds for Marriage ) with Van Johnson and Kathryn Grayson . He wrote the story for this film.

In the early 1950s, Marx left MGM and initially worked as a producer for various film companies and from 1955 on mainly for television.

In 1990 Marx published the book Deadly Illusions together with Joyce Vanderveen , a report on the end of the film producer Paul Bern , who died in Los Angeles in 1932 under circumstances that were not entirely clear.

Publication by Samuel Marx

• with Joyce Vanderveen: Deadly Illusions: Jean Harlow and the Murder of Paul Bern , Random House, 1990, ISBN 0394582187

Filmography (selection)

• 1941: Deadly Pact (Unholy Partners)
• 1943: Homesickness (Lassie Come Home)
• 1951: My husband wants to get married (Grounds for Marriage)
• 1952: Budapest does not answer (Assignment: Paris)
• 1955: El Tigre (Kiss of Fire)
• 1962: The Hero of Attica (Il tiranno di Siracusa)
• 1969: A breath of love (La cattura)

Web links

• Samuel Marx in the Internet Movie Database (English)