Producer Saul Zaentz, known for his Oscar winning movies and his feud with singer John Fogerty (
Zanz Kan't Danz) has died.
From the Hollywood Reporter:
Saul Zaentz, who parlayed a successful career in the music business into a Oscar-winning second act as an independent movie producer, died Friday at his home in the San Francisco area from complications of Alzheimer's. He was 92.
His nephew Paul Zaentz, a fellow producer, confirmed the news. "He was an extraordinary man," Paul Zaentz, who worked with his uncle for 37 years, said. "He had a lot of guts, a lot of integrity."
After presenting such major acts as Creedence Clearwater Revival on his Fantasy Records label, Zaentz moved into producing and shared three Academy Awards for best picture -- for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1996).
Zaentz then received the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1997 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his “consistently high quality of motion picture production.”
Incredibly, two of his best picture Oscars were his first two films:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and
Amadeus. His third film was the internationally acclaimed
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), nominated for a pair of Academy Awards.
He teamed with fledgling producer Michael Douglas on
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Jack Nicholson-starrer based on Ken Kesey’s novel earned Zaentz his first Academy Award, which he shared with Douglas. The film took home the top five Oscars, a rare achievement.
Befitting his music-industry background, his second best picture was music-based. Amadeus was based on the life and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the jealousy his talent inspired. That film hauled in eight Oscars, including one for F. Murray Abraham as the envious Antonio Salieri.
His third best picture winner,
The English Patient, based on an unpublished novel that Zaentz acquired, won nine Oscars -- director Anthony Minghella and actress Juliette Binoche were among those honored -- and received BAFTA's best film award as well.
He produced an animated version of
The Lord of the Rings (1978), directed by Ralph Bakshi, as well as
Payday (1972),
Three Warriors (1978) and
At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) and executive produced
The Mosquito Coast (1986), directed by Peter Weir.
More recently, Zaentz produced Goya's
Ghosts (2006), directed by Milos Forman, his man on
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and
Amadeus. Forman earned Oscars on those films as well.
Zaentz received the Producers Guild of America's Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award in 1997 for
The English Patient and received the PGA's Vision Award for the film. Most auspiciously, the guild presented Zaentz with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.
He also accepted BAFTA's Academy Fellowship in 2003 for his career achievements.
In 1980, Zaentz created the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, Calif., an editing and sound-mixing facility. It housed the Saul Zaentz Co., Fantasy Studios, Concord Music Group and the Berkeley Digital Film Institute as well as other production companies.
Not averse to litigation, including suing studios over profits sharing, Zaentz was involved in acrimonious litigation with Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty over song rights. Zaentz's contention was with two songs on Fogerty's 1985 Centerfield album for Warner Bros. Records. Zaentz argued that the song “Zanz Kant Danz” was a slur on him. He filed suit, and Fogerty responded by changing the first word to "Vanz."
Zaentz filed a second lawsuit, contending that Fogerty used the same chorus for “The Old Man Down the Road” as “Run Through the Jungle,” which Fogerty had recorded while on Zaentz's Fantasy Records label. Fogerty ultimately prevailed after surreal courtroom testimony that, essentially, absolved him of plagiarizing himself.
“The way I view Saul Zaentz and his henchmen, shall I say -- well, that probably gives it away,” Fogerty said in a New York Times interview in 2005. “I still view them in the same light. If I was walking down the street and those rattlesnakes were walking towards me, I would give them a wide berth.”
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