The winner of three Best Picture Oscars, Saul Zaentz, passed away in San Francisco due to compliments in Alzheimer’s disease. He was 92 when he died. His best films were One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus .
Zaentz who only produced nine films in which he shared three Best Picture Academy Awards for the aforementioned pair and 1996’s The English Patient, as well as being awarded the honourary Irving J. Thalberg award in 1997. He also worked on the Ralph Bakshi version of The Lord Of The Rings, successful dramas like The Mosquito Coast, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being andAt Play In The Fields Of The Lord, and most recently Goya’s Ghosts in 2006, reuniting withAmadeus and Cuckoo’s Nest director Milos Forman.
Zaentz who was better known in his music business before he turned his attention on film was born in 1921, He served in the army during World War ll, and also tried his life as a chicken farmer for a short span. He then decided to focus on studies and studied business before heading to San Francisco where he began work with record company headed by Norman Granz. Zaentz worked on a concert series called Jazz At The Philharmonic, managing concert tours with the likes of Duke Ellington. In 1967 he bought the company Independent jazz label which he had joined in 1955. There, he worked with Creedence Clearwater Revival among other artists, which unfortunately suffered a lot of controversies with the group’s frontman John Fogerty over the next few decades.
Coming to movies his travel along the film line had much less controversies, although he was involved in the rights litigation surrounding The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. Zaentz also received a Producers Guild lifetime achievement award in 1994 and a BAFTA Academy Fellowship in 2003.