Jack Woltz
From The Godfather Wiki
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| Jack Woltz | |
|---|---|
| Biographical information | |
| Gender |
Male |
| Eye color |
Brown |
| Hair color |
Grey |
| Born |
July 26, 1880 |
| Died |
November 2, 1967 (aged 87) |
| Title(s) |
Producer |
| Portrayed By | |
- "Now you listen to me, you smooth talking son-of-a-bitch. Let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane will never get that movie. I don't care how many dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork."
- ―Jack Woltz[src]
Jack Woltz is a movie producer from Hollywood, portrayed by John Marley.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Woltz is a Jewish movie producer who has achieved great success in the film industry, having come up from nothing, rolling barrels with his father in Hell's Kitchen during the early 1900s.
During World War II he became the White House's propaganda adviser, obtaining a large government contract as well as political contacts in the process, as well as an acquaintance with J. Edgar Hoover. It is also revealed that he had become a pedophile in his old age who routinely molests young girls who audition for his movies, as well as the daughters of some of his actresses. To discourage these rumors, he married a series of actresses, as well as taking etiquette lessons from a British butler and dressing lessons from a British valet.
By the 1940s, Woltz's latest hobby became racehorse breeding, and had purchased the british Triple-Crown winning racehorse Khartoum for $600,000, planning to retire the champion from racing and put him to stud for Woltz's private stables. Woltz was very fond of the stallion, and spent a fortune hiring expert breeders, vets, and even armed P.I.'s to guard Khartoum's stable.
[edit] Dealings with the Corleones
In 1945, Woltz refuses to cast the singer/actor Johnny Fontane in his movie due to his jealousy over Fontane's role in the break up of one of Woltz's previous relationships. Woltz unsuccessfully tried to blacklist Johnny as a communist, but resorted to barring him from a movie role that would have restored Fontane's career. Fontane would have been perfect for the role, maybe would even have won best actor, but Woltz turns him down simply because of this, hoping to ruin Johnny. Fontane asks Don Vito Corleone, who is his godfather, as well as the head of the Corleone family, to lean on Woltz. Corleone sends his consigliere, Tom Hagen, to Hollywood make Waltz "an offer he can't refuse".
The deal was very generous: the Corleone family would keep the actor's unions from giving Woltz International any trouble, and would insure that one of Woltz's best actors, who had started using heroin, would be barred access to drugs. Don Corleone was even willing to finance the entire production, and all Woltz had to do was cast Johnny Fontane in the role. Thinking Hagen is "some punk that Fontane hired", Woltz initially becomes enraged shouting anti-Italian slurs at Hagen and refuses to bargain. Later, after researching exactly who Hagen worked for, he appeared more eager to listen, trying to renegotiate gain help with the union problems, but in the end he still refused to cast Fontane simply out of spite. Woltz even threatened to use his connections to the White House and the F.B.I. if the Corleones tried any "rough stuff".
Hagen returned to New York to report to Don Corleone, and told the Don that Woltz was not "Sicilian", i.e. that Woltz did not have the balls to risk everything he had, including his life, just to settle a petty vendetta. Don Corleone decided to make Woltz realize this as well. One morning soon after, Woltz wakes up screaming when he finds the decapitated head of his prized racehorse, Khartoum, in his bed, forcing him to realize that he was dealing with people who didn't think twice before butchering a half-million dollar horse and could easily do the same to him. After having a chance to calm down, Woltz's first instinct is to prosecute the Corleones, but rethinks this when he suspects that if word got out that he had been so easily pushed around by an "obscure little olive oil importer from New York", it would make him the laughingstock of Hollywood and he would lose all credibility. Covering up the cause of Khartoom's untimely death, Woltz gave Johnny Fontane the role in his picture.
When Johnny Fontane is nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the film, a spiteful Woltz bribes or threatens nearly everyone in Hollywood to keep him from winning. He is again thwarted by the Corleone Family, and Fontane wins, eventually opening a Corleone-funded movie studio that soon rivals Woltz Pictures.
[edit] The Offer
Several years later, rumours of Woltz's paedophilia grew, and to combat them he married former starlet Vickie Adair. She promptly squandered his fortune on extreme redecoration and additions to his mansion and lavish parties with hipsters and surfers. He survived only by quietly selling of assets and land from the back of his movie lot.
In 1962, the Corleone Family needed to negotiate with Woltz again in order to remove the heat they were receiving from President Shea. Woltz supplied them with a sex-tape of Shea and Marguerite Duvall, who was dating Michael Corleone at that time. Because of his help the Corleone's secured him monetarily and his studio again became successful. He died in 1967 at his home, of a stroke, at the age of 87. He is considered a Hollywood legend.
[edit] Real-life sources
Woltz is believed to be based on Jack Warner, the founder of Warner Brothers studios, although his paedophilic nature is completely fictional.
Or Harry Cohn, President of Columbia pictures who cast Sinatra in From Here to Eternity. Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, recalled that Cohn was "a real Jekyll-and-Hyde-type guy... socially, he could be very charming."
In The Godfather's Revenge Woltz states that he judges films by how many times he needs to go to the bathroom in their duration, something that was attritbuted to the noir director Alfred Hitchcock.
