Washington’s (nearly) secret Hollywood connection: new perspectives on wartime filmmaking in the US

Mark Harris’s book and subsequent Netflix special brought deserved attention to the “Big Five” directors of Second World War America:  Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens, and William Wyler.  Oddly for Hollywood, only one is Jewish:  émigré Wyler.  This presentation will focus on the Hollywood Jewish insiders, particularly Leo Rosten, Harpo Marx, and Budd Schulberg, who played critical roles in the establishment and character of the “film program” as it developed.

Michael Berkowitz is a Professor of modern Jewish history at University College London (UCL). UCL is the original and largest of the institutions that comprise the University of London. He taught previously at the University of Judaism (LA), Ohio State University and the University of Chicago.

A native of Rochester, NY, Michael is a graduate of Hobart College and received his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin. He is author of five books, most recently Jews and Photography in Britain, and editor or co-editor of five volumes. In addition to academic writing and university teaching, Michael produced three versions of the Kurt Weill/Georg Kaiser comic opera, "The Tsar Has His Photograph Taken." He also is working on a musical, Man & God, about the inventors of the Kodachrome film process, Leopold Mannes and Leo Godowsky Jr.