Hollywood: The Oral History

by Jeanine Basinger

CHARLTON HESTON: I think producers can do their job in three general ways. There is the producer who is a logistician, who deals with the logistics of film, and whose expertise has to do with schedules and the mechanics of making a picture. And this, never doubt it, is vital. Then there are producers who are promoters. Arthur Jacobs was one of those. So was Sam Bronston. There are many such. Sam Spiegel is such a producer, really. Then there are producers whose primary instincts are for some of the creative aspects of filmmaking. Perhaps script, perhaps cutting. I would say Hal Wallis was an example of that, a man who knows a great deal about editing and who feels that his prime creative contribution is in the editing stage. There are producers who, like David O. Selznick, said the producer is the conductor of the orchestra and the director is merely the first violinist.