Richard D. Zanuck(1934-2012)

He was the son of Darryl F Zanuck. As a college student, he spent his holidays working in different departments at Fox Studios and so learned the business from the bottom up. One summer, he attended every production business meeting with his father and later joined his dad as story and production assistant on such films as Island in the Sun and The Sun Also Rises. With his father working in Africa on Roots of Heaven, he was given responsibility for a film he had been working on but hadn't expected to produce. Compulsion went on to win the Cannes Festival Award for its male stars and was a financial as well as an artistic success, establishing Richard as a producer in his own right. In 1969, at 34, with his appointment as senior executive vice president at 20th Century Fox, he was the youngest corporate president in Hollywood history. During his eight years at Fox, he rebuilt the oganisation into one of the world's most prestigious and successful studios and at the same time brought it up to date as a leading center for television and film production.