Aaron Blum Wolowicz was born October 19, 1898 in
Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eva (née Ewa Blum) and Jacob Wolowicz/Wolovitz (Jankiel Wołowicz). He was the youngest of three children and had two older sisters: Minna Wolovitz (1893–1986), a Hollywood talent agent, and Juel Wolovitz (1895–1953). His parents were
Ashkenazi Jews from the
Suwałki region of
Congress Poland, which was then part of the
Russian Empire and is now
Poland. The future producer and his sisters eventually changed their surname to
Wallis. His family moved in 1922 to
Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at
Warner Bros. in 1923. Within a few years, Wallis became involved in the production end of the business and would eventually become head of production at Warner. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, he was involved with the production of more than 400 feature-length movies. Among the more significant movies he produced were
Casablanca,
Dark Victory,
The Adventures of Robin Hood,
The Maltese Falcon,
Sergeant York, and
Now, Voyager. In March 1944, Wallis won the
Academy Award for Best Picture at the
16th Academy Awards. During the ceremony, when the award was announced for
Casablanca, Wallis got up to accept, but studio head
Jack L. Warner rushed up to the stage "with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction," Wallis later recalled. "I couldn't believe it was happening.
Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious ... Almost forty years later, I still haven't recovered from the shock." This incident would lead Wallis to leave Warner Bros. the next month. Wallis started to work as an independent producer, enjoying considerable success both commercially and critically. The first screenwriters he hired for his new enterprise were
Ayn Rand and
Lillian Hellman. Among his financial hits were the
Dean Martin and
Jerry Lewis comedies, and several of
Elvis Presley's movies. Actors he had under contract included
Dolores Hart. He produced
True Grit, for which
John Wayne won the
Academy Award for Best Actor of 1969, and its sequel. After moving to
Universal Pictures, he produced
Anne of the Thousand Days (starring
Richard Burton and Canadian actress
Geneviève Bujold) and
Mary, Queen of Scots (starring
Vanessa Redgrave and
Glenda Jackson). He received 16
Academy Award producer nominations for
Best Picture, winning for
Casablanca in 1943. For his consistently high quality of motion picture production, he was twice honored with the Academy Awards'
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He was also nominated for seven
Golden Globe awards, twice winning awards for Best Picture. In 1975, he received the
Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in
motion pictures. In 1980, he published his autobiography,
Starmaker, co-written with
Charles Higham. In the 1930s, Wallis invested in residential real estate development in Sherman Oaks, California. He named Halbrent Avenue after himself and/or his son, using his nickname "Hal" and his son Harold's middle name "Brent". Most of its original homes still stand, and it is very close to Ventura and Sepulveda Boulevards and the Sherman Oaks Galleria used extensively in the 1982 movie
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Wallis and his second wife, actress
Martha Hyer, contributed funds towards the construction of The Hal and Martha Hyer Wallis Theatre, a
black box theater, at
Northwestern University.
Relationships Wallis was married to actress
Louise Fazenda from 1927 until her death in 1962. They had one son, Harold Brent, who became a psychiatrist. Several writers including actors and producers have stated that actress
Lizabeth Scott was a mistress of Wallis while he was married to Fazenda. Wallis was married to actress
Martha Hyer from 1966 until his death in 1986. Hyer wanted Wallis to include Scott and his other mistresses in his autobiography, but he did not. After his marriages, Wallis watched Scott's films at home, night after night.
Politics Wallis was a lifelong
Republican, who supported
Dwight D. Eisenhower in the
1952 US Presidential Election. He was also a member of the
Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. ==Death==