JOE PASTERNAK 1930s FREULICH Cigarette Hollywood 10x8 PORTRAIT

Original 10 inch x 8 inch Portrait of Hungarian film producer JOE PASTERNAK (1901 - 1991).

Portrait by Hollywood Photographer Freulich with his stamp on the reverse.

Joe Pasternak was an Hungarian immigrant who came to America in his teens and worked his way up through the ranks to become an assistant director at Paramount in 1923. After producing several successful films in Europe, Pasternak revived the flagging fortunes of Universal with a series of hit musicals starring Deanna Durbin in the mid-1930s. He is also credited with discovering Judy Garland, who later starred in his musicals "Presenting Lily Mars" (1943), "In the Good Old Summertime" (1949) and "Summer Stock" (1950). Pasternak also cast Mario Lanza in "The Toast of New Orleans" (1950) and "The Great Caruso" (1951), and rejuvenated the career of Marlene Dietrich with "Destry Rides Again" (1939). In 1945 Pasternak fought MGM for permission to film the now classic live-action/animated sequence in "Anchors Aweigh", in which Gene Kelly dances with the cartoon mouse, Jerry (at a cost of $150,000). Over a 40-year career, Pasternak was responsible for 105 films, mostly family-oriented, frothy fare which earned a total of some $400 million. He headed one of MGM's three musical "units" in the 1940s and, in 1960, produced the influential adolescent-romance-on-the-beach film, "Where the Boys Are".

The portrait, on double weight paper, is in very good condition.