Richard Zanuck

The death of Dick Zanuck stunned many in Hollywood on Friday, prompting an outpouring of accolades from directors, producers, actors and executives who had worked with him over the decades. Former News Corp. president Peter Chernin, whose 20 th Century Fox-based production company worked with Zanuck on last year's hit remake “Planet of the Apes,” said that he spoke with Zanuck on Thursday and “he sounded upbeat and happy.” The two spoke briefly about Zanuck's next project for Chernin Entertainment called “Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children,” which Tim Burton was interested in directing.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of May 5 - 11, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES The Voice This new episode features performances from Rod Stewart and Cee Lo Green. 8 p.m. NBC Arrow Malcolm (John Barrowman) puts on his black hood and prepares to conclude his business with seismologist Brian Markov (Eric Floyd) in this new episode.

Despite the current glut of movie sequels, they're hardly new. In 1939, the same year MGM distributed "Gone With the Wind," the studio also released its third "Thin Man," its second and third "Dr. Kildares," and its seventh, eighth and ninth "Andy Hardys." Yet, for half a century, "GWTW"--the most successful movie of all time, based on the most popular American novel (more than 25 million copies sold since 1936)--has eluded sequelization. But that may change.

Actress Sharon Stone has sold a compound in the Beverly Crest area for $6.575 million. The buyer is producer Lili Zanuck, widow of film producer Richard Zanuck. Surrounded by walls and gated, the Mediterranean-style estate sits on 5 acres with pathways, bridges, waterfalls, fruit trees, a meditation garden, a swimming pool and a tennis court with viewing pavilion. The main house, built in 1991, includes a paneled library, a wet bar in the living room and a master suite with dual bathrooms, dual dressing rooms and a terrace.

Not every Hollywood producer is given an opportunity to live out what would certainly be a common fantasy: traveling back to your own past. Many might choose to do so to correct some misstep that affected the rest of their lives. But what do you do if your past needs little correction? Why, then, travel back at all? This in a sense is the question I put to Richard D. Zanuck.

One day in 1962, the Hollywood legend Darryl F. Zanuck turned to his 27-year-old son, Richard, seeking advice. Whom, the elder Zanuck asked, should he appoint head of production of 20th Century Fox, which had fallen on hard times and was losing millions on the problem-plagued "Cleopatra" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Richard Zanuck gave his father -- a co-founder of Fox - a piece of paper with a single word on it: Me. Dad took his son's recommendation and, over the next five decades, Richard Zanuck emerged from the shadow of his father at the studio and eventually became an Oscar-winning independent producer of such films as "Jaws," which ushered in the modern blockbuster era. He followed with well-regarded films such as "The Verdict," and "Driving Miss Daisy.

Producers Honored: The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that the recipients of its Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award will be producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown. The two men formed the Zanuck-Brown company in 1972 and have produced 17 films since then, among them "The Sting," "Jaws," "The Verdict" and "Cocoon." Last year the pair went their separate ways and Zanuck co-produced "Driving Miss Daisy."

Paramount Pictures has effectively locked up a "first look" deal with the independent Zanuck Co., producer of the current Warner Bros. hit "Driving Miss Daisy," with a four-year deal that guarantees Zanuck greater participation in front-end profits than it would normally get from a major studio release. At the same time, by sweetening the terms, Paramount has guaranteed itself the right of first refusal to projects developed by one of the most reliable producers in Hollywood.

Signaling an official end to his 18-year partnership with David Brown, film producer Richard Zanuck announced Monday that he is forming a development company with his wife and financier Jerry Perenchio. The Zanuck/Brown team--which over the years has produced such box office winners as "The French Connection," "The Sting," and "Jaws"--had been drifting apart for some time. Although Brown was listed as a producer on "Cocoon: The Return," released Nov.

Even by the plodding standards of the movie business, "Cocoon's" metamorphosis from unpublished novel to film took a long four years. Lili Fini Zanuck should know. Standing at the very back of the Gotham Theater in Manhattan, wearing Reebok workout sneakers, khaki pants and a pale blue buttoned-down shirt, Zanuck, 31, says that producing her first movie seemed like giving birth. "I feel like it was a great pregnancy and I know the child is healthy," she said.

One day in 1962, the Hollywood legend Darryl F. Zanuck turned to his 27-year-old son, Richard, seeking advice. Whom, the elder Zanuck asked, should he appoint head of production of 20th Century Fox, which had fallen on hard times and was losing millions on the problem-plagued "Cleopatra" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Richard Zanuck gave his father -- a co-founder of Fox - a piece of paper with a single word on it: Me. Dad took his son's recommendation and, over the next five decades, Richard Zanuck emerged from the shadow of his father at the studio and eventually became an Oscar-winning independent producer of such films as "Jaws," which ushered in the modern blockbuster era. He followed with well-regarded films such as "The Verdict," and "Driving Miss Daisy.

Richard D. Zanuck, one of the most legendary and influential figures in the history of the movie business, died Friday morning at age 77. Zanuck had a huge influence on Hollywood and the culture at large, first as the head of 20 th Century Fox and, for the past four decades, as a film producer. On his watch, Fox released era-defining classics such as “The Sound of Music,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “MASH.” PHOTOS: Richard Zanuck | 1934 - 2012 As a producer, Zanuck, who was the son of Darryl Zanuck, the first chief of Fox, continued a remarkable run; he was a driving force on movies such as “Jaws,” "Cocoon,” and “Driving Miss Daisy.” In recent years, he had collaborated frequently with Tim Burton, producing about a half-dozen of the auteur's movies, including the recently released"Dark Shadows.

When Dick Zanuck and I had lunch last month, it would've been impossible to imagine that the veteran producer would be gone six weeks later. Zanuck, who was 77 when he died Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, looked at least a decade younger and had the energy of an Olympic marathoner. Long before everyone in showbiz became a fitness nut, Zanuck was doing serious workouts, lifting weights, taking long jogs and, in his later years, swimming laps. Zanuck wasn't especially vain. He wanted to be in good shape because it gave him more energy for his work, and for him work was life.

Richard Zanuckwas the kind of producer who comes along once in a lifetime - and, given the corporate nature of contemporary Hollywood, may never come along again. To read through his credits is to watch a half-century of American entertainment fly by. Each film seems huge and era-defining, until you get to the next one. While still in his 20s, Zanuck ran production at 20th Century Fox, where he nurtured great films and filmmakers and helped the studio collect Oscars by the boatload.

In the mid-1970s, an accomplished producer named Richard Zanuck decided to guide a young director, a man who hadn't had much luck in Hollywood, on a new genre movie. The filmmaker was one Steven Spielberg, and the movie was “Jaws.” It ended up working out pretty well. It's hard not to think of that dynamic when one hears about “Hidden,” a horror-thriller about to begin production that will, as a result of Friday's sudden death of Zanuck, have the distinction (and perhaps pressure)

The death of Dick Zanuck stunned many in Hollywood on Friday, prompting an outpouring of accolades from directors, producers, actors and executives who had worked with him over the decades. Former News Corp. president Peter Chernin, whose 20 th Century Fox-based production company worked with Zanuck on last year's hit remake “Planet of the Apes,” said that he spoke with Zanuck on Thursday and “he sounded upbeat and happy.” The two spoke briefly about Zanuck's next project for Chernin Entertainment called “Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children,” which Tim Burton was interested in directing.

When Dick Zanuck and I had lunch last month, it would've been impossible to imagine that the veteran producer would be gone six weeks later. Zanuck, who was 77 when he died Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, looked at least a decade younger and had the energy of an Olympic marathoner. Long before everyone in showbiz became a fitness nut, Zanuck was doing serious workouts, lifting weights, taking long jogs and, in his later years, swimming laps. Zanuck wasn't especially vain. He wanted to be in good shape because it gave him more energy for his work, and for him work was life.

The seductive charms of director Adrian Lyne's "Lolita" were not enough to hold Academy Award-winning producer Richard D. Zanuck to the project. It seems Zanuck, who produced the Oscar-winner "Driving Miss Daisy," bailed before filming even started. His stated reason is that the film's delayed start date posed a scheduling conflict for other projects he planned to produce.

Movie producing was in Dick Zanuck's blood. Zanuck, who died Friday morning of a heart attack at age 77, won (with his wife, Lili Fini Zanuck) the best picture Oscar for 1989's “Driving Miss Daisy.” He also earned best picture nominations for producing 1975's “Jaws” and 1982's “The Verdict” with David Brown. His success in films was perhaps to be expected.  The youngest of three children born to longtime 20th Century Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck and his wife, Virginia Fox, young Zanuck grew up privileged in Hollywood, partying with Shirley Temple as a kid. He began his own film career at 19 in the story department at Fox and by 24 had produced his first film, 1959's "Compulsion.

It was a fitting burial for Ronni Chasen, the doyenne of Hollywood publicists who was slain early Tuesday while driving home from a movie premiere. Nearly 1,000 mourners on a crisp and windy Sunday overflowed from the chapel at Hillside Memorial Park to remember the celebrated movie promoter. Chasen, 64, would have been honored and perhaps embarrassed by the publicity, attendees said. The New York native who never lost traces of her accent spent the past four decades promoting the lives of others, preferring to keep her perfectly coiffed and impeccably dressed self out of the picture.