Solomon Max Wurtzel (September 12, 1890 – April 9, 1958) was an American film producer.

Life and career

Born in New York City, the second of five brothers; his parents were both Polish Jews from the village of Ulanow (Surname ''Wurtzel'' is a variant spelling of German and Yiddish ''wurzel'', ''root'' in English). Wurtzel worked as an executive assistant to William Fox, founding owner of the

Fox Film Corporation The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American independent company that produced motion pictures and was formed in 1914 by the theater "chain" pioneer William Fox (producer), William Fox. It was the corporate successor to ...

. In 1911, Wurtzel hired Alan E. Freedman as a bookkeeper for Fox's fledgling film processing laboratory. Freedman would remain for over 50 years, eventually turning the operation into the gargantuan " Color by DeLuxe" DeLuxe Laboratories. In 1917, Fox sent Wurtzel to California to oversee the studio's West Coast productions. Early in Wurtzel's career, he shepherded Fox's Hollywood studio through the Spanish Flu pandemic. He developed a formula for creating consistently profitable

B movie A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...

s that are heralded today. During his 34 year career at Fox and 20th Century Fox, Wurtzel supervised over 700 hundred films (many uncredited) including a large number of the ''

Charlie Chan Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu Police Department, Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan ...

'', '' Mr. Moto'' and '' Jones Family'' series as well as other successes such as '' Bright Eyes'' in 1934, starring

Shirley Temple Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat, who was Hollywood's number-one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. Later, she was na ...

and featuring her enduring trademark song: " On the Good Ship Lollipop". He discovered young director

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), better known as John Ford, was an American film director and producer. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and w ...

who later went on to earn 4

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

s. He also discovered and made a star of famous cowboys

Will Rogers William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma ...

and

Tom Mix Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western (genre), Western films between 1909 and 1935. He appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were s ...

. Wurtzel cast dancer

Rita Hayworth Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918May 14, 1987) was an American actress, dancer, and Pin-up model, pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of ...

(credited under her given name Rita Cansino) in her first film role, the 1935 production ''

Dante's Inferno ''Inferno'' (; Italian for ' Hell') is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century narrative poem '' The Divine Comedy'', followed by and . The ''Inferno'' describes the journey of a fictionalised version of Dante himsel ...

''. He gave an unknown

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe ( ; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "Blonde stereotype#Blonde bombshell, blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex ...

her first walk-on in his 1947 production of '' Dangerous Years''. He produced several of

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...

's later comedies in the 1940s, including '' Great Guns'' (1941), '' A-Haunting We Will Go'' (1942), '' Jitterbugs'' (1943) and '' The Big Noise'' (1944). In 1943, he produced '' Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas'' on the guerrilla resistance movement in

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

Personal life and death

Wurtzel married Marian Bodner, who immigrated to New York from a small Polish

shtetl or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...

, in 1912. They had two children Paul Wurtzel, who worked in his father's production company Sol M. Wurtzel Productions and went on to become a prolific assistant director for multiple television series, and Lillian Wurtzel Semenov, who compiled and edited a book of letters between her father and his boss William Fox. Wurtzel cofounded and served as the first President of Temple Israel of Hollywood. Ill for many years following a stroke in 1953, Wurtzel died at his home in Hollywood on April 9, 1958.

and Rabbi Max Nussbaum delivered eulogies at his funeral at Temple Israel of Hollywood attended by 400 mourners. Wurtzel was interred in the

Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery The Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in Culver City, California, United States. Many Jewish people from the entertainment industry are buried there. The cemetery is known for Al Jolson's elaborate tomb (designed by Los Angeles ...

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights, Californi ...

. The Wurtzel-Neff Estate on Bellagio Road in

Bel Air, Los Angeles Bel Air (or Bel-Air) is a residential neighborhood on the Los Angeles Westside, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains in the U.S. state of California. Together with Beverly Hills, California, Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, Bel Air fo ...

was designed by Wallace Neff and completed in 1932.

Selected filmography

* '' Rustling for Cupid'' (1926) * '' The Shamrock Handicap'' (1926) * '' Once a Sinner'' (1931) * '' Body and Soul'' (1931) * '' Charlie Chan's Greatest Case'' (1933) * '' The Man Who Dared'' (1933) * '' Smoke Lightning'' (1933) * '' The Last Trail'' (1933) * '' Life in the Raw'' (1933) * '' Walls of Gold'' (1933) * '' Smoky'' (1933) * '' Judge Priest'' (1934) * '' Handy Andy'' (1934) * '' Bright Eyes'' (1934) * '' Charlie Chan in Paris'' (1935) * ''

'' (1935) * '' Paddy O'Day'' (1936) * '' Ramona'' (1936) * '' Thank You, Jeeves!'' (1936) * '' Gentle Julia'' (1936) * '' Think Fast, Mr. Moto'' (1936) * '' Thank You, Mr. Moto'' (1937) * '' Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation'' (1939) * '' The Man Who Wouldn't Talk'' (1940) * '' Charlie Chan in Rio'' (1941) * '' Dressed to Kill'' (1941) * '' Michael Shayne, Private Detective'' (1941) * '' A Haunting We Will Go'' (1942) * '' The Lone Star Ranger'' (1942) * '' Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas'' (1943) * '' The Big Noise'' (1944) * ''

Backlash Backlash may refer to: Literature * '' Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women'', a 1991 book by Susan Faludi * ''Backlash'' (Star Wars novel), a 2010 novel by Aaron Allston * Backlash (Marc Slayton), a comic book character from ...

'' (1947) * '' Roses Are Red'' (1947) * '' The Invisible Wall'' (1947) * '' Second Chance'' (1947) * '' Half Past Midnight'' (1948) * '' Miss Mink of 1949'' (1949) * ''

Tucson Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

'' (1949) Source:

References

External links

* * *
''Sol Wurtzel: The Forgotten Mogul''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wurtzel, Sol 1890 births 1958 deaths Businesspeople from New York City Film producers from New York (state) American people of German-Jewish descent American film studio executives Burials at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery 20th-century American businesspeople