Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz (born February 28, 1921 in New Jersey) was a big lover of music and movies as a child. After serving in the army during World War II he began realizing his passion for music as a distributor for "Granz's Jazz Record" company, a job that included managing concert tours for greats like Duke Ellington and Stan Getz. In 1955 he joined "Fantasy Records" which is today the biggest jazz record label in the world. In 1967 Zaentz purchased the label and in 1975 began using the company to move on to his second passion, the movie industry. Zaentz himself takes a very active role in the movies he produces, especially in the film's editing, marketing, and distributing.
Fantasy Records owns the rights to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Zaentz has had a long-running disagreement about this with the former CCR singer John Fogerty.
He has received an Oscar for three of his films, all winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984), both directed by Milos Forman, and The English Patient (1996) directed by Anthony Minghella. At the 69th Academy Awards Zaentz also accepted The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for life achievement.
Saul Zaentz owns the worldwide film, stage, and merchandise rights to J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, sold to him in 1976. In 1978 he produced the animated version of The Lord of the Rings directed by the controversial animator Ralph Bakshi, which covered approximately the first half of the Lord of the Rings. In 2001-2003 Peter Jackson filmed the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy which went on to win 17 Oscars and numerous other international and national awards. Following this, in August 2004, Zaentz sued New Line Cinema for over $20 million in unpaid royalties, based on the difference between gross and net profits for The Fellowship of the Ring, and the exact terms of the royalty arrangement between Zaentz and New Line.
In 1980 Zaentz created "The Saul Zaentz Film Center" in Los Angeles as part of his "Fantasy Records" company. Until today it is used as an editing and sound mixing studio for many academy award winning films.
