Hal B. Wallis

Hal B. Wallis
Born	Harold Brent Wallis (1898-09-14)September 14, 1898 Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died	October 5, 1986(1986-10-05) (aged 88) Rancho Mirage, California
Cause of death	Diabetes
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
Occupation	Film producer
Years active	1931–1983
Spouse(s)	Louise Fazenda (m. 1927-1962; her death; 1 child) Martha Hyer (m. 1966-1986; his death)

Harold Brent "Hal" Wallis (September 14, 1898 – October 5, 1986) was an American film producer. He is best remembered for producing Casablanca (1942), and other films for Warner Bros. featuring such film stars as Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. Later, for a long period, he was connected with Paramount Pictures and oversaw films featuring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, and John Wayne.

Life and career

Harold Brent Wallis was born in 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eva (née Blum) and Jacob Walinsky, Eastern European Jews, 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 Warners. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, he was involved with the production of more than 400 feature-length movies.

Among the significant movies he produced were Casablanca, Dark Victory, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Maltese Falcon, Sergeant York, and Now, Voyager. He left Warners in 1944, after a clash with Jack Warner over Warner's acceptance of the Best Picture Oscar to 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. He produced Mary, Queen of Scots (starring Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson) and Anne of the Thousand Days (starring Richard Burton and Genevieve Bujold). He received sixteen Academy Award 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.^{[citation needed]}

Marriages

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.

Death

Wallis died in 1986 of complications of diabetes in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of eighty-eight. News of his passing was not released until after his private service was completed. U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan sent condolences to the Wallis family. He is interred in a crypt at the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In popular culture

Wallis was portrayed by actor Bill Lake in the 2002 CBS television film Martin and Lewis.

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)
• Dark Victory (1939)
• The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
• 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)
• 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)
• 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)

Academy Awards

Year	Award	Film	Winner
1931–32	Outstanding Production	Five Star Final	Irving Thalberg – Grand Hotel
1932–33		I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang	Winfield Sheehan – Cavalcade
1934		Flirtation Walk	Harry Cohn – It Happened One Night
1935		Captain Blood	Irving Thalberg and Albert Lewin – Mutiny on the Bounty
1938		The Adventures of Robin Hood	Frank Capra – You Can't Take It With You
		Four Daughters
		Jezebel
1940		All This, and Heaven Too	David O. Selznick – Rebecca
		The Letter
1941	Outstanding Motion Picture	The Maltese Falcon	Darryl F. Zanuck – How Green Was My Valley
		One Foot in Heaven
		Sergeant York
1942		Kings Row	Sidney Franklin – Mrs. Miniver
		Yankee Doodle Dandy
1943		Casablanca	Won
		Watch on the Rhine	Hal B. Wallis – Casablanca
1955	Best Motion Picture	The Rose Tattoo	Harold Hecht – Marty
1964	Best Picture	Becket	Jack Warner – My Fair Lady
1969		Anne of the Thousand Days	Jerome Hellman – Midnight Cowboy

1938 and 1943 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Awards

External links

• Hal B. Wallis at the Internet Movie Database
• Hal B. Wallis at the TCM Movie Database
• Literature on Hal B. Wallis