William Goetz
William Goetz ( born March 24, 1903 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, † August 15 1969 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American film producer and art collector.
Life
William Goetz was born as the youngest of eight children in a Jewish working class family in Philadelphia. His mother died when he was ten years old; his father left the family shortly thereafter down. Brought up by his older siblings, followed Goetz some of his brothers to Hollywood, where he soon took over first odd jobs in film. After a few years he was increasingly active in the field of film production.
1930 made him the Fox Film Corporation as a producer. In the same year he married Edith Mayer, daughter of MGM boss Louis B. Mayer. From his father, he finally received the financial support, the 1932 junior partner of Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Pictures newly established made it henceforth served as vice president of Goetz. A post he retained after the merger of 20th Century Pictures and Fox for 20th Century- Fox in 1935.
After 1945 it came between him and Zanuck tensions, whereupon Goetz left the studio to start with the former attorney Leo Spitz own independent production company, International Pictures. In July 1946, the small company merged with the British Rank Organisation and Universal Studios to Universal - International, was appointed at the Goetz president.
1949 revolutionized Goetz along with Hollywood agent Lew Wasserman the film industry when he promised James Stewart a share in the profits of his films for Universal. This concept of profit sharing of a leading actor then became the standard in Hollywood. 1953 Goetz left Universal. As an independent producer, he was nominated for an Oscar for the film drama Sayonara (1957 ) with Marlon Brando.
Art Collection
Goetz was also a passionate art collector and his wife Edith. Together they acquired paintings and sculptures by famous artists such as Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Édouard Manet, Pierre- Auguste Renoir and Pablo Picasso. In 1948, Goetz a self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh titled study by candlelight for that time extraordinary $ 60,000. As the image should be issued in 1949 at a Gogh retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there were disputes about the authorship of van Gogh. The nephew of the painter, Vincent Willem van Gogh, and Willem Sandberg, director of the Stedelijk Museum, doubted the authenticity of the image. Although there were in the Netherlands and art historians who were the self-portrait to be genuine, but a jury of the New York museum also spoke against the authenticity and declined as an exhibit.
After Goetz's wife had died in 1987, parts of the Goetz Collection in 1988 were auctioned by Christie's auction house in New York for a total of 85 million dollars.