Gordon Stulberg(1923-2000)
- Producer
Gordon Stulberg spent 40 years in the film business. He began his
career as a contract law attorney, and then became in house counsel for
Columbia Pictures. He is responsible for the making of Rocky Horror
Picture Show, Star Wars, Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, The
Paper Chase, Little Big Man, Le Mans and hundreds of other pictures. As
the head of major motion picture studios, he read the scripts and
decided what would and wouldn't be produced. He had an innate sense of
what worked, as envisioned by the many blockbuster films he was
involved in. Not infallible, he made his share of flops too. While
being President and CEO of Polygram, he served on the Board of
Directors for Balcor Entertainment and a negotiator for Trimark
Pictures. He was a negotiator for the AmericanFilm Market Assoc. He
also testified in the lawsuit between Pamela Anderson and the studio
that was trying to force her to play a part she did not agree to. He
was her key witness, and she won the case. He called the first strike
of the Writers Guild in 1954 and is responsible for establishing the
collective bargaining rights for writers in the industry. Dedicated to
providing education for the disadvantaged, Stulberg helped form and
headed the California Community College Assn. He taught at UCLA and
USC, one of his students being Francis Ford Copppola.