Sam Jaffe

Longtime Hollywood fixture Sam Jaffe (who should not be confused with the actor of the same name) was at various points in his career a talent agent, a studio executive, and a producer. His start in the business, however, was as an office boy for the Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky Company. His brother-in-law, B.P. Schulberg, had a hand in getting the position for the young Jaffe, which quickly proved to be a springboard for his career. He rapidly worked his way through the ranks of the company and became the executive in charge of production, with responsibility over 50 or so projects per year. He switched production companies in the early '30s, going over to Columbia Pictures for a very brief time before starting his own talent agency in the middle part of that same decade. As an agent, he represented the likes of Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March, David Niven, Zero Mostel, Richard Burton, and Stanley Kubrick. In the 1950s, with the advent of Senator Joseph McCarthy's UnAmerican Activities investigations, Jaffe's agency suffered a significant drop of business, since many of his clients were under investigation or blacklisted. He was forced to join forces with The Famous Artists Agency and shortly thereafter, in 1959, Jaffe retired from the talent agent business and moved to London. From there, he produced a number of films, as well as becoming well-known as a collector of impressionist art. Sam Jaffe died in early 2000, at the age of 98.