Background
Sol C. Siegel was born on March 30, 1903 in New York City.
Sol C. Siegel was born on March 30, 1903 in New York City.
In the early 1930s Siegel was sales manager of the Brunswick-Columbia record label. He stayed on at Republic as an executive producer, working with Gene Autry and John Wayne. In 1956 Siegel joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Towards the end of the year Dore Schary was fired as head of production and Siegel was rumoured to be given his job.
However Ben Thau got the job and Siegel remained a producer, making Les Girls, Manitoba on Fire and Merry Andrew and Some Came Running. Siegel was appointed head of studio operations at for three years in April 1958.
The following month he was appointed vice president in charge of production. By this stage the studio had already greenlit a number of movies that would go on to be major successes, including Ben Hur and North by Northwest.
He was also the subject of an extortion attempt.
The success of Ben Hur encouraged Siegel to authorise a series of remakes at such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Cimarron and Mutiny on the Bounty. All these films lost money for the studio. This - along with a number of other box office failures - led to him being replaced as head of production in January 1962 by Robert M. Weitman.
Siegel then began working as an independent producer.
He ran his own production company from 1964-1967. Siegel died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on 29 December 1982, aged 79.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
The Village of the Damned
The Gallant Hours
Home from the Hill
The Time Machine (1960)
Key Witness
Go Naked in the World
The Last Voyage
Two Loves
The Subterraneans
The Gazebo
Please Don"t Eat the Daisies
The Marriage-Go-Round
Ada
All the Fine Young Cannibals
Platinum High School
The Day They Robbed the Bank of England
Where the Boys Are
Butterfield 8
Atlantis, the Lost Continent
Bachelor in Paradise
Never So Few
The Travels of Jamie McPheeters
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Cimarron
Billy Rose"s Jumbo
Sweet Bird of Youth
King of Kings
All Fall Down
Two Weeks in Another Town
The Honeymoon Machine
A Light in the Piazza
Thunder of Drums
Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
Bridge to the Sun
Mutiny on the Bounty
I Thank a Fool
In the Cool of the Day
A Period of Adjustment
The Tartars
The Green Helmet
Unmade films
adaptation of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
And Seven from America about the Olympic Games
adaptation of The Alligators by Mollie Kazan
The Secret Classroom
County Fair - drama set against backdrop of harness racing
Only in America play by Harry Golden
Charlemagne
Lady L - film postponed
The Winter of Our Discontent based on book by John Steinbeck
Inamorta by Richard Brooks
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich based on the book by William Shirer.