Hal B. Wallis
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Born Aaron Blum Wolowicz
September 14, 1898
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died October 5, 1986 (aged 88)
Rancho Mirage, California, U.S.
Cause of death Diabetes
Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California
Occupation Film producer
Harold Brent “Hal” Wallis (born Aaron Blum Wolowicz, September 14, 1898 – October 5, 1986) was an American film producer. He is best remembered for producing Casablanca (1942) and True Grit (1969), along with many other major films for Warner Bros. featuring such film stars as Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Errol Flynn.
Later on, for a long period, he was connected with Paramount Pictures and oversaw films featuring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, and John Wayne.
Aaron Blum Wolowicz was born October 19, 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eva (née Blum) and Jacob Wolowicz, Ashkenazi Jews from the Suwałki region of Poland who changed their surname to Wallis.
His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros. in 1923. Within a few years, Wallis became involved in the production end of the business and would eventually become head of production at Warner. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, he was involved with the production of more than 400 feature-length movies.
Among the more significant movies he produced were Casablanca, Dark Victory, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Maltese Falcon, Sergeant York, and Now, Voyager.
He left Warner Bros. in 1944, after a clash with Jack L. Warner over Warner’s acceptance of the Best Picture Oscar for Casablanca, to work as an independent producer, enjoying considerable success both commercially and critically. The first screenwriters he hired for his new enterprise were Ayn Rand and Lillian Hellman. Among his financial hits were the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedies, and several of Elvis Presley’s movies.
He produced True Grit, for which John Wayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor of 1969, and its sequel.
After moving to Universal Pictures, he produced Mary, Queen of Scots (starring Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson) and Anne of the Thousand Days (starring Richard Burton and Canadian-born actress Geneviève Bujold). He received 16 Academy Award producer nominations for Best Picture, winning for Casablanca in 1943.
For his consistently high quality of motion picture production, he was twice honored with the Academy Awards’ Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He was also nominated for seven Golden Globe awards, twice winning awards for Best Picture. In 1975, he received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures.
In 1980, he published his autobiography, Starmaker, cowritten with Charles Higham.
In the 1930s Mr. Wallis used his investment dollars to develop residential real estate in Sherman Oaks. He named one of the streets after himself using his nickname “Hal” and his nick-middle name “Brent”. Halbrent Avenue, Sherman Oaks, CA is the street and most of the original homes are still standing today. Its very close to Ventura and Sepulveda Boulevards near the infamous Sherman Oaks Galleria used extensively in the 1982 movie romp Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Wallis was married twice, to actress Louise Fazenda from 1927 until her death in 1962, and to actress Martha Hyer from 1966 until his death in 1986. he had one son with Fazenda, Brent Harris.
Death
Wallis died in 1986 of complications of diabetes in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 88. News of his passing was not released until after his private memorial service was completed. U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan sent condolences to the family. Wallis is interred in a crypt at the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Filmography
Little Caesar (1931)
Central Airport (1933)
The Petrified Forest (1936)
Kid Galahad (1937)
West of Shanghai (1937)
The Invisible Menace (1938)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Comet Over Broadway (1938)
Dark Victory (1939)
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Castle on the Hudson (1940)
Santa Fe Trail (1940)
Sergeant York (1941)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
This Is the Army (1943)
Love Letters (1945)
You Came Along (1945)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Desert Fury (1947)
So Evil My Love (1948)
The Fountainhead (1949)
Dark City (1950)
The Furies (1950)
The Rainmaker (1956)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Loving You (1957)
King Creole (1958)
Career (1959)
G.I. Blues (1960)
Blue Hawaii (1961)
Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962)
Fun in Acapulco (1963)
Summer and Smoke (1961)
Wives and Lovers (1963)
Becket (1964)
Roustabout (1964)
The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966)
Barefoot in the Park (1967)
Easy Come, Easy Go (1967)
True Grit (1969)
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)
Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
Rooster Cogburn (1975)