Dore Schary

Biography

Isadore "Dore" Schary (Newark, 1905 – New York, 1980) was an American playwright, screenwriter and film producer, and one of the most influential figures in postwar Hollywood. He began as a writer for the stage and won the Academy Award for Best Story in 1938 for Boys Town, before building his reputation as a producer.

After working at RKO, he was named head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1948, and in 1951 he replaced Louis B. Mayer as the studio's president, a post he held until 1956. His views often clashed with Mayer's; Mayer favored splashy, wholesome entertainment, while Schary leaned toward the "message pictures" he championed. His tenure coincided with the decline of the studio system after the antitrust ruling and the rise of television. After leaving MGM he wrote the Broadway play Sunrise at Campobello, which won five Tony Awards and which he later adapted for the screen in 1960. Outside the studio he was a liberal activist, serving as national president of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League and as New York City's commissioner of cultural affairs. His legacy rests largely on socially minded films and on a career that moved between theatre, screenwriting and production.

Key films

• Boys Town (1938): co-written with the story that earned Schary his Academy Award for Best Story.
• The Spiral Staircase (1946): produced by Schary for Vanguard Films, a suspense thriller that was a critical and commercial success.
• Crossfire (1947): produced for RKO, one of the studio's most successful films of the period.
• Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948): a comedy Schary produced personally for RKO, which proved a big hit.
• Sunrise at Campobello (1960): the film version of his play about Franklin D. Roosevelt, which he wrote and produced.