Saul Zaentz

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Saul Zaentz (born February 28, 1921) is an American film producer and former record company executive. He has won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and in 1996 won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

Zaentz’s film production career is marked by a dedication to the adaptation of the novel. A prolific reader, Zaentz typically does not produce original screenplays. His most recent production, Goya's Ghosts,^[1] is an exception, being an original story by Jean-Claude Carriere and Miloš Forman.

1 Early life
2 Music career
3 Film career
4 Filmography
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Zaentz was born in Passaic, New Jersey. After serving in the United States Army during World War II, Zaentz began realizing his passion for music as a distributor for Granz's Jazz Record company, a job that included managing concert tours for greats like Duke Ellington and Stan Getz.

[edit] Music career

In 1955 he joined Fantasy Records, for many years the largest independent jazz record label in the world. In 1967 Zaentz and other partners purchased the label from founders Max and Sol Weiss. The partners struck success by signing the roots-rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival, fronted by former Fantasy warehouseman John Fogerty. Zaentz parlayed his Fantasy earnings into film production, beginning with Payday in 1973. He takes a very active role in the movies he produces, especially in each film's post-production, marketing and distribution.

Fantasy Records owns the distribution and publishing rights to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Zaentz had a long-running dispute about this with former CCR singer/songwriter Fogerty. The songs, "Zanz Kant Danz", "The Old Man Down the Road", and "Mr. Greed" from Fogerty's album Centerfield are thinly veiled slams of Zaentz.

A series of lawsuits began between Fogerty and Zaentz, Zaentz claiming defamation of character for the lyric "Zanz can't dance but he'll steal your money", and also claiming that the fundamental music in "The Old Man Down the Road" was a lift from the Fantasy copyrighted but Fogerty written "Run Through the Jungle" from CCR's smash 1970 album Cosmo's Factory. Zaentz won on the defamation issue, forcing Warner Bros. and Fogerty to change the title and lyric to "Vanz Can't Dance", but lost on the copyright issue. The judge found that an artist cannot plagiarize himself.^[2] Fogerty in turn claimed the label misled him about investing and managing his earnings from royalties, resulting in a devastating financial loss. Years later, when Zaentz sold his interest in Fantasy, Fogerty almost immediately re-signed with the label.

[edit] Film career

Zaentz has received the Best Picture Oscar for three films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) (co-produced with Michael Douglas), Amadeus (1984), both directed by Miloš Forman, and The English Patient (1996), directed by Anthony Minghella.

In the early 1970s he saw the stage adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at a theatre in the Jackson Square area of San Francisco. Zaentz co-produced the film adaptation with Michael Douglas. The film won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, which Zaentz and Douglas shared.

In 1976 Zaentz acquired certain rights in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In 1978 he produced an animated version of The Lord of the Rings, directed by animator Ralph Bakshi. Through Tolkien Enterprises, Saul Zaentz owns the worldwide film, stage, and merchandise rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

In 1980 Zaentz created The Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, California, an editing and sound-mixing studio for his own films, independent filmmakers and Hollywood productions.

In 1984 Zaentz and Forman collaborated again, on the adaptation of the Peter Schaffer's stage play Amadeus about composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It won eight Academy Awards, including Zaentz’s second Best Picture, and spun off a best-selling soundtrack album (distributed by Fantasy Records).

In 1985 Zaentz produced The Unbearable Lightness of Being, based on the Milan Kundera novel. The adaptation was directed by San Francisco’s Philip Kaufman from a screenplay by Jean-Claude Carriere.

Zaentz next produced Mosquito Coast, directed by Peter Weir on location in Belize, Central America, starring Harrison Ford, from the book by Paul Theroux.

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 rain forest, continued Mosquito Coast’s theme of the clash of western values with the primitive.

In 1994 Zaentz purchased the rights to the unpublished novel The English Patient and worked up a scenario with author Michael Ondaatje. The book was adapted for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. English Patient swept the 1997 Academy Awards, winning Best Director for Minghella and Best Picture for Zaentz. At the 69th Academy Awards Zaentz also accepted The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement.

In 2004-2005 Zaentz and partners sold Fantasy Records to independent jazz label Concord, and closed the Saul Zaentz Film Center.

In 2005-2006 Zaentz embarked on a new film project, Goya's Ghosts, centered on events in the life of Spanish painter Francisco Goya, starring Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgaard, and featuring Randy Quaid as the king of Spain. The film is being made with long-time collaborators Miloš Forman (director) and Jean-Claude Carriere (screenplay). Shot on location in Spain and edited in New York, the film is slated for late 2006 release.