Darryl F. Zanuck

Is portrayed by Steven Vidler in The Wonderful World of Disney: Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story (2001)

Is portrayed by John Rubinstein in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996)

Is portrayed by Ben Piazza in Guilty by Suspicion (1991).

Is portrayed by Peter Maloney in This Year's Blonde (1980), by Sandy McPeak in Marilyn and Me (1991) and by William Atherton in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)

Inducted into the United States Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979.

Once claimed (circa 1970) that 20th Century-Fox intends to sell films on videotape five years after their release in cinemas.

After the success of The Longest Day (1962), Zanuck returned to run 20th Century-Fox; he promoted his son, Richard D. Zanuck, to head of production, then engineered his firing in a messy boardroom brawl.

On December 2,1960, he acquired the film rights to The Longest Day (1962) for $175,000.

Produced Gentleman's Agreement (1947), one of the first films about anti- Semitism, even though Zanuck himself was not Jewish.

Served as rank of Colonel in the cinema section of the Signal Corps. He had to resign, during August 1942, as head of production at 20th Century Fox to do so.

His signature productions were such sentimental, content-laden dramas as How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Grapes Of Wrath (1940), and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). In the late fifties, Zanuck relinquished day-to-day control of the studio, left his wife, and moved to Europe to concentrate on producing. Many of his later films were designed in part to promote the careers of his successive girlfriends, Bella Darvi, Juliette Gréco, Irina Demick and Geneviève Gilles -- none of whom found much favor with directors or audiences.

In 1935, Twentieth absorbed a bankrupt giant, Fox. Zanuck ruled the combined studio for decades. He became known as the most "hands-on" of the major studio bosses, taking particular pride in his talent for remaking movies in the cutting room.

In 1933, after the Warners made it clear that Zanuck would never be more than an employee, he quit to form Twentieth Century Films (with backing from Louis B. Mayer and Joseph M. Schenck).

One of the kingpins of Hollywood's studio system, Zanuck was the offspring of the ill-fated marriage of the alcoholic night clerk in Wahoo, Nebraska's only hotel and the hotel owner's daughter. Both parents had abandoned him by the time he was 13. At 15, he joined the U. S. Army, and he fought in Belgium in World War I. Mustered out, he kept himself alive with a series of desultory jobs -- steelworker, foreman in a garment factory, professional boxer -- while pursuing a career as a writer. He turned his first published story (for "Physical Culture, " a pulp magazine) into a film scenario for William Russell; his next important sale was to Irving Thalberg. Although often described as barely literate, Zanuck turned out to have a knack for movie plots. After a well-paid apprenticeship with Mack Sennett, Syd Chaplin and Carl Laemmle, Zanuck hit his stride by devising (with Malcolm St. Clair) the Rin Tin Tin series of police-dog movies for Warner Brothers. For Warner, under his own name and three pseudonyms, he ground out as many as 19 scripts a year and became head of production at age 23. He helped forge that studio's style with such films as The Jazz Singer (1927), The Public Enemy (1931) and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932).

He was hired by Warner Bros. in 1924 as a writer on Rin Tin Tin pictures at a little less than $500 per week. By the end of 1925 he had been promoted to executive in charge of production at a salary of $5000 per week.

In 1917 he lied about his age and joined the US Army (he was actually 15 at the time) and was eventually posted to the Mexican border, during which time he took part in the punitive expedition against Mexican revolutionary / bandit Pancho Villa. He was later sent to France, where he saw even more combat.