30 Facts About Jerry Wald

Jerome Irving Wald was an American screenwriter and a producer of films and radio programs.

Jerry Wald began writing a radio column for the New York Evening Graphic, while studying journalism at New York University.

Jerry Wald provided the story for Universal's Gift of Gab.

Jerry Wald then signed with Warners where would be based for many years.

Jerry Wald worked on Ready, Willing and Able based on a story by Richard Macaulay.

Jerry Wald was promoted to producer at the recommendation of Mark Hellinger.

Jerry Wald was associate producer on The Man Who Came to Dinner, adapted by the Epsteins; All Through the Night, with Bogart; Larceny, Inc with Robinson; and Juke Girl with Sheridan and Ronald Reagan.

Jerry Wald was promoted to full producer, and soon established himself as one of the leading filmmakers on the lot: Across the Pacific, with Bogart and director John Huston, written by Macaulay; George Washington Slept Here and The Hard Way ; he contributed to the story of the latter, but had effectively given up writing.

Jerry Wald produced Joan Crawford's first film at Warners, Mildred Pierce which won her an Oscar and earned Jerry Wald an Oscar Nomination for Best Picture.

Jerry Wald did her next film, Humoresque, written by Clifford Odets and directed by Jean Negulesco.

Jerry Wald produced The Unfaithful with Ann Sheridan and director Vincent Sherman; Possessed with Crawford; Dark Passage with Bogart and Lauren Bacall for Daves; and To the Victor with Morgan and Dves.

Jerry Wald produced a series of classic films: Key Largo with Bogart, Bacall and Edward G Robinson; Johnny Belinda, which won an Oscar for star Jane Wyman; and Adventures of Don Juan with Flynn.

Jerry Wald produced Young Man with a Horn with Kirk Douglas; Perfect Strangers with Morgan and Ginger Rogers; Sherman's The Damned Don't Cry with Crawford; Caged, with Eleanor Parker; the first adaptation of The Glass Menagerie ; The Breaking Point, from a Hemingway novel, with Garfield; and Storm Warning, an anti-Ku Klux Klan film with Rogers, Reagan and Doris Day.

Jerry Wald did some uncredited producing on Macao with Robert Mitchum.

Krasna and Jerry Wald dissolved their partnership because of interference from Howard Hughes, then head of RKO, in their productions.

Jerry Wald went to Columbia in 1952 as vice president in charge of production.

Jerry Wald had a solid hit with An Affair to Remember starring Grant and Deborah Kerr, and some minor ones with No Down Payment directed by Martin Ritt, and Kiss Them for Me with Grant.

Jerry Wald had one of the biggest successes of his career with Peyton Place, directed by Mark Robson.

Jerry Wald produced The Long, Hot Summer with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward from the novel by William Faulkner for Ritt; In Love and War, a war film with Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter directed by Philip Dunne; Mardi Gras a musical with Pat Boone; and The Sound and the Fury, more Faulkner from Ritt with Woodward and Yul Brynner.

Jerry Wald produced The Best of Everything with Crawford, directed by Negulesco; Hound-Dog Man, an attempt to make a film star of Fabian Forte; Beloved Infidel with Kerr and Gregory Peck; The Story on Page One, written and directed by Odets, starring Hayworth.

Jerry Wald spent a period in England to make Sons and Lovers.

Jerry Wald produced the Academy Awards telecast twice, the ceremonies for 1957 and 1958.

Jerry Wald received four Academy Award nominations as producer of the following nominees for Best Picture: Mildred Pierce, Johnny Belinda, Peyton Place and Sons and Lovers.

Jerry Wald is often cited as the real-life inspiration for the character Sammy Glick in the novel What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg.

Jerry Wald, was a close friend of Joan Crawford in the forties, offering her many parts including the title role in Mildred Pierce, which he produced.

Jerry Wald convinced director Michael Curtiz that she would succeed in the role, which brought her the Oscar for Best Actress in 1946.

Jerry Wald married his wife Constance Emily "Connie" Polan on Christmas Day 1941; the couple had two sons.

Jerry Wald became a California socialite and hostess whose dinner parties, frequented by her friend Audrey Hepburn continued after her husband died.

Jerry Wald had been ill for the last few years of his life.

Jerry Wald died, aged 50, at his home in Beverly Hills, California from a heart attack.