- Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston (
March 26 ,1908 ,Bessarabia –January 12 ,1994 ,Sacramento, California ) was aRussia n-born Americanfilm producer , and a nephew of socialist revolutionary figure,Leon Trotsky . He was also the petitioner in a U.S. Supreme Court case that set a major precedent forperjury prosecutions when it overturned his conviction.Bronston was born in
Bessarabia ,Russian Empire (present dayMoldova ) and educated at theSorbonne . He worked forMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer 's French unit inParis before setting up as an independent film producer by the 1940s. His first film for his new production company,Samuel Bronston Productions , was "Jack London", (1943) followed by a series of epic films: "John Paul Jones" (1959), "King of Kings" (1961), "El Cid" (1961), "55 Days at Peking " (1963) and "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964).He was a pioneer in the practice of locating epic-scale productions in
Spain to reduce the massive costs involved. The success of his films inspired him to help build gigantic studios inLas Rozas nearMadrid .Bronston frequently worked with a regular team of creative artists: the director
Anthony Mann , the screenwritersPhilip Yordan andJesse Lasky Jr. , the composerMiklós Rózsa , the co-producersJaime Prades , Alan Brown andMichal Waszynski , the cinematographerRobert Krasker and film editorRobert Lawrence . He also favouredCharlton Heston andSophia Loren as his leading actors.The cost of the construction of the film studios and the box-office failure of his last epic, "The Fall of the Roman Empire" combined to leave Bronston in financial difficulties and, in 1964, he had to stop all business activities. Samuel Bronston Productions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 5, 1964 stating he owed a debt of $5,647,758 to his creditor
Pierre S. du Pont . His company declared bankruptcy in June of that year. A petition in August 1964 stated Bronston Distributors, Inc. (a separate company) owedParamount $6,750,000 and Pierre S. Du Point $323,191.Two years later, he was asked under
oath by a lawyer for one of his creditors a series of questions about the many bank accounts the company had had in Europe. One of them concerned whether he had had an account inSwitzerland . "The company had an account inZurich for six months", he replied, and answered all other questions concerning Swiss bank accounts in the negative.Later, it was discovered that he had indeed had a very active personal bank account in Geneva during the years he had been producing films in Europe. He was convicted of
perjury by federal prosecutors who argued that his answer, while truthful in and of itself, was intended to mislead or evade. After the appeals court upheld the conviction, "Bronston v. United States " reached the Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction on January 10, 1973. Its ruling, that literally truthful yet technically misleading answers cannot be prosecuted as perjury, has formed an important part of jurisprudence on the matter ever since, even being invoked by PresidentBill Clinton 's attorneys when he was charged with perjury during his impeachment.The bankruptcy and criminal prosecution devastated his film career. He completed the 1964 "Circus World" with
John Wayne under the production company "Bronson", after which he made only three films, "Savage Pampas " (1966), filmed inArgentina with Robert Taylor, "Doctor Coppelius " (1966) and "Fort Saganne " (1984), a French film withGérard Depardieu andCatherine Deneuve . A planned epic on the life ofIsabella of Spain never materialised.In 1962, Bronston was awarded a Special Merit
Golden Globe Award for "El Cid".Bronston died of
pneumonia secondary toAlzheimer's disease at Mercy Hospital inSacramento, California . He is buried inLas Rozas ,Madrid , Spain.References
*”Bronston Film Productions Files Bankruptcy Petition”, New York Times, June 6, 1944 p. 15.
*"Business Records", New York Times, August 6, 1965, p. 32.
*Lyons, Richard D. "Samuel Bronston, Film Producer, 85", New York Times, January 15, 1994, p. 28External links
*imdb name|id=0111566|name=Samuel Bronston
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.