William Fox: Last News

Sharon Rosen Leib I recently discovered my pioneer producer great-grandfather Sol M. Wurtzel’s obituary in the April 16, 1958 edition of Variety. In 1917, mogul William Fox sent Sol to oversee production at his Hollywood studio.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, FeaturesSeveral years ago, a non-Jewish film producer turned to me and announced, casually and with an air of arrogance and ignorance reserved particularly for bigots, “Jews control Hollywood.”He assured me this was a compliment, as many antisemites are wont, trotting out Neal Gabler’s seminal text on the subject, “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood,” as evidence. But it was clear that said producer had either never read Gabler’s book, or missed one of its key points entirely: the founding producers of the film biz were Jewish, most of them Eastern European immigrants, excluded and ostracized from virtually every other industry in America.William Fox, Carle Laemmle, Louis B.