24 Facts About Saul Zaentz

Saul Zaentz was an American film producer and record company executive.

Saul Zaentz won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and, in 1996, was awarded the Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award.

Saul Zaentz's final production, Goya's Ghosts, was an exception, being an original story by Jean-Claude Carriere and Milos Forman.

Saul Zaentz was born on February 28,1921, in Passaic, New Jersey, the youngest of five.

Saul Zaentz studied at Rutgers after the war on the GI Bill.

Saul Zaentz lost on the copyright issue when a jury found Fogerty not liable.

Years later, when Saul Zaentz sold his interest in Fantasy, Fogerty almost immediately re-signed with the label.

Saul Zaentz next produced The Mosquito Coast, directed by Peter Weir on location in Belize and starring Harrison Ford, adapted from the book by Paul Theroux.

In 1988, Saul Zaentz produced The Unbearable Lightness of Being, based on the Milan Kundera novel.

Saul Zaentz's following film, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, adapted by Jean-Claude Carriere from the book by Peter Matthiessen, shot by Hector Babenco on location in the Amazon Rainforest, continued Mosquito Coasts theme of the clash of Western values with the primitive.

In 1992, Saul Zaentz purchased the rights to the unpublished novel The English Patient and worked up a scenario with author Michael Ondaatje.

In developing the project Saul Zaentz resisted attempts by his backers to make the story more acceptable to a mainstream audience whereby they wanted him to cast Demi Moore a leading role.

In 2003, Saul Zaentz was made a Fellow of BAFTA, in recognition of his film career.

In 1976, Saul Zaentz acquired certain rights as regards The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit from United Artists, who had in turn purchased them directly from Tolkien eight years prior.

In 1978, Zaentz produced an animated version of The Lord of the Rings, written chiefly by Peter S Beagle and directed by animator Ralph Bakshi.

Saul Zaentz was peripherally involved in the controversy about who would make a live-action film version of The Hobbit, because of his ownership of the film rights to the novel.

Shaye explained his company's position, saying that New Line's contract with Saul Zaentz was going to expire soon, which forced them to find a new director.

In December 2007 Variety reported that Saul Zaentz was suing New Line, alleging that the studio has refused to make records available so that he can confirm his profit-participation statements are accurate.

In 2011, Saul Zaentz's company began several legal actions against small businesses in the UK to enforce their "Hobbit" trademark, including the Hungry Hobbit cafe in Sarehole, Birmingham and a pub in Southampton, England, which had traded as The Hobbit for twenty years.

The Saul Zaentz Film Center was a facility in Berkeley, California, which for many years provided production and post-production services for Bay Area filmmakers.

The moving image collection of Saul Zaentz is housed at the Academy Film Archive.

Saul Zaentz died on January 3,2014, in San Francisco, California at the age of 92 due to Alzheimer's disease complications.

Saul Zaentz was the epitome of an independent, with an incredible sense of material, and the courage to see it through.

Saul Zaentz was married twice, first to Celia Mingus, who was the ex-wife of Charles Mingus.