Milton Sperling (July 6, 1912 – August 26, 1988) was an American

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

for

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

and Warner Bros., where he had his own independent production unit,

United States Pictures United States Pictures (also known as United States Productions) was the name of the motion picture production company belonging to Milton Sperling who was Harry Warner's (of the Warner Bros. studio) son-in-law. Sperling was a highly experien ...

Biography

After leaving the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

, Sperling entered the film industry by working at Paramount's Astoria Studios as a shipping clerk. He later became a personal secretary for Darryl F. Zanuck and Hal Wallis at Warner Bros. in 1931. After Zanuck resigned his position as Head of Production of Warner Bros. studios in 1933 and was offered a position with Twentieth Century Pictures (later merged with Fox Pictures), Sperling became an assistant to Edward Small, an independent film producer who released his Reliance Pictures and Edward Small Productions through United Artists. Sperling learned as much about an independent low-budget film production unit as he had about high-budget major studio films from Zanuck and Wallis at Warner Bros. Zanuck hired Sperling for his combined

, where Sperling's first

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

''Sing, Baby Sing'' was released in 1936. Sperling later did more screenwriting, credited and uncredited, for

, becoming a

in 1941, with his first productions being ''

Sun Valley Serenade ''Sun Valley Serenade'' is a 1941 musical film directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and starring Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller, Milton Berle, and Lynn Bari. It features the Glenn Miller Orchestra as well as dancing by the Nicholas Brothers. ...

'' then '' I Wake Up Screaming'', both in 1941. Though now working for Fox, in 1936, Sperling was introduced to Harry Warner's (of the Warner brothers) 16-year-old daughter Betty Warner. This match was arranged by Betty Warner's older sister, Doris. After an on-and-off relationship of three years, Betty and Sperling married on July 13, 1939. In 1941, Sperling was an associate producer on the US Marine Corps Technicolor romantic military film comedy '' To the Shores of Tripoli'' and quickly filmed a new ending, showing John Payne hearing the news about the attack and reenlisting in the Marines. Sperling also enlisted in the Marines with orders to attend Military Intelligence school but still had several films to complete before leaving the studio. The US Marine Corps used Sperling's film expertise by assigning him to the US Marine Corps Photographic Unit, where he produced the documentaries ''The Battle for The Marianas'' (1944) and the Technicolor ''

To the Shores of Iwo Jima ''To the Shores of Iwo Jima'' is a 1945 Kodachrome color short war film produced by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. It documents the Battle of Iwo Jima, and was the first time that American audiences saw in color the foota ...

'' (1945), filmed up front with the Marines in their Pacific Island campaigns, where several combat cameramen lost their lives shooting the footage. Returning from the war, Zanuck offered Sperling his old job back but father-in-law Harry Warner told Sperling that a member of the family should not work for a rival studio. offering him an independent production unit where he could make the films he wanted. After World War II, the major studios were looking at studios that only financed and released films such as United Artists and

Monogram Pictures Monogram Pictures Corporation was an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios i ...

and decided that hiring stars, directors, and film crews on a picture-by-picture basis would be more economical, especially with the problems with the trade unions the major studios were having. Sperling named his company "

" with his first of 14 films released under the label being '' Cloak and Dagger''. Sperling contributed to the screenplays on several of these films, including '' The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell'' (1955) that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Writing, Story and Screenplay. Sperling also produced other films not under the

label such as '' Top Secret Affair'' (1957), filmed in England, and '' Marjorie Morningstar'' (1958). The final

film was '' Battle of the Bulge'', filmed in Spain in 1965. Sperling later produced a Spanish made "

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

" with Lee Van Cleef in the role of ''

Captain Apache ''Captain Apache'' is a 1971 Spanish-British acid Western film directed by Alexander Singer and starring Lee Van Cleef, Carroll Baker, and Stuart Whitman. It was written and produced by Milton Sperling and Philip Yordan. The film was based on th ...

'' (1971), then several television movies until his death from cancer in 1988. He was buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park, in Los Angeles.

References

*Sperling, Cass Warner, Millner, Cork, and Warner Jr, Jack ''Hollywood Be Thy Name'' Prima Publishing (1994)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sperling, Milton American film producers American male screenwriters 1912 births 1988 deaths United States Marines 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American male writers Warner family 20th-century American screenwriters United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II Deaths from cancer in the United States