Jerry Wald

A Tinseltown presence who began in radio and worked in Hollywood's heyday with Busby Berkeley on "Hollywood Hotel" and with Raoul Walsh on "The Roaring Twenties," Jerry Wald wrote or produced over 60 features and shorts over his relatively brief career. After writing a radio column while at New York University, be soon began to pen and produce several short features for Warner Brothers. His star-studded series, called "Rambling 'Round Radio Row," launched his Hollywood career, and soon he was scripting features, including 1935's redemption romance "Living on Velvet" for director Frank Borzage. He soon began work on other musicals, partnering with such writers as Julius J. Epstein and Richard Macaulay. Throughout the 1930s he accumulated over 20 film writing credits, including the original story for Berkeley's musical comedy "Hollywood Hotel," the James Cagney-Humphrey Bogart crime thriller "The Roaring Twenties," and Bogart's 1940 noir thriller "They Drive by Night." Throughout the '30s, Wald was desperate to return to the producing role he'd had a taste of on "Radio Row," and by 1941 he began to achieve his dream, collaborating behind the scenes with some of Hollywood's top talent. At a breakneck pace, Wald produced some 50-plus pictures, from melodramas like the Joan Crawford vehicle "Mildred Pierce" to John Huston's Bogart-and-Bacall noir classic "Key Largo"; meanwhile, he produced two of the televised Academy Award ceremonies, in 1958 and 1959. Wald's flourishing Hollywood career was cut short when he died of a heart attack at the age of 50.