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A Guy Doing Things
A Portrait of Hollywood's Brilliant Young
Motion Picture Executive Producer-President
by LEON CUTTERMAN
The American motion picture industry
was built by men who knew how to trans
late brains and hard work into productive
enterprise, and who possessed the vision to
plan beyond the present. One of these men
is William Goetz, who, in the summer of
1946, when Universal Pictures Company
and International Pictures combined fa
cilities to form Universal-International
Studios, was placed in full charge of pro
duction for the new affiliation. Today,
William Goetz is also president of the
studio as well.
The company itself isn’t the biggest in
Hollywood, but it’s up with the biggest,
for the sun never sets on Billy Goetz's far-
flung motion pictures ideas. Ob
viously there is some reason
when a young man, starting
among the rank and file and
building his prestige as he goes,
rises as fast and as far in a world-
famous industry, through such a
rapid-fire series of promotions,
as Goetz did.
“We can do it!” That was the
reply of William Goetz when he
became the top man at the
studio, and when the board of
directors and stockholders asked
him to step in and take over a
then-failing company and make
it one of the strongest and most
important in the world. Some
LENS STUDY — Below, the
camera focuses on William Goetz
and at righ t a scene from
‘Sioord in the Desert" which he
engineered for Universal-Inter
national. Center view shows ref
ugees landing on the Palestine
coast — Hollywood's version of
this episode of the Israel saga.
said, “Impossible; fantastic!” Others said,
“Maybe; we’ll see.”
Goetz’s four simple words really tell
the story of the man and his splendid
achievement. In them we have, at once
the index to his character and the key to
his rise to the topmost heights of the film
industry to which, early, he dedicated his
life.
Goetz was more than right in his answer
— as all Hollywood now knows. He was
right in his answer because he knew be
fore he spoke. He was not just guessing
or indulging in eerie optimism; he knew
his industry.
He is a motion picture producer, and his
is always the creative approach — to know,
not to guess. Before he answered, “We can
do it!” he knew 1 what his industry could
do. He also knew something else equally
important: the genius of the American free
enterprise system. He has seen this system
in operation all his life; had watched it
work “miracles” again and again — and
his own career had been a perfect exempli
fication of its virtues.
Bill Goetz’s career is, indeed, a com
pelling example of the matchless opportu
nity America, under the free enterprise
system, affords every man to rise from the
bottom to the top by his own efforts. That
is precisely what he did.
William Goetz, a native New Yorker, was
born in Manhattan. He belongs to a family
of showmen having inherited the trait
from his father. The elder Goetz was a
New York concessionaire who owned in
terests in the souvenir sales franchise
aboard Ward Line steamships running be
tween New York, Cuba and Central Amer
ican ports.
Bill and his four older brothers were
brought up in a holiday environment
which directed their careers into show
business. All five of the
Goetz brothers have be
come influential in the
motion picture industry.
Ben, the oldest was vice-
president of Consoli
dated Films when Bill,
the youngest, reached the
age of 13 and graduated
from high school.
Both parents died dur
ing the same year, 1916.
Bill was urged to enter
college. He followed his
own intuition, however,
and went to work at $30
a week developing movie
negatives for Consoli
dated. The job was edu
cational and intriguing.
It encouraged him to be
a director. Later he did
become a second assistant director for the
producing firm of Asher, Small and Rogers.
The company’s star was Corinne Griffith.
When Asher, Small and Rogers trans
ferred their studio activities to Hollywood,
Billy Goetz came with them and soon be
came a full-fledged assistant director. It
was not long before Miss Griffith began
to produce her own pictures with young
William as her production manager. His
next position was that of general manager
of Corinne Griffith Productions, the proj
ect continuing for four years. When shoot
ing schedules permitted, he held other
company production manager posts at
MGM and then at Paramount studios.
Goetz had joined Fox Films prior to the
advent of sound on the screen. As assistant
to Producer Sol Wurtzel, then studio pro
duction chief, Bill was one of the first to
recognize new commercial benefits to be
derived from foreign versions of talking
films. Although he possessed only a limited
knowledge of foreign languages, he was
handed the (Please turn to page 35)
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The Southern Israelite