| Samuel Bronston | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 7, 1908 Bessarabia, Russian Empire |
| Died | January 12, 1994 (aged 85) Sacramento, CA, U.S. |
| Occupation | Film producer, film director |
| Years active | 1939-1994 |
Samuel Bronston (Samuel Bronshtein, March 26, 1908, Bessarabia – January 12, 1994, Sacramento, California) was a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, 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 for perjury prosecutions when it overturned his conviction.
Bronston was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire (present day Moldova) and educated at the Sorbonne. He worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's French unit in Paris 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 in Las Rozas near Madrid.
Bronston frequently worked with a regular team of creative artists: the director Anthony Mann, the screenwriters Philip Yordan and Jesse Lasky Jr., the composer Miklós Rózsa, the co-producers Jaime Prades, Alan Brown and Michal Waszynski, the cinematographer Robert Krasker and film editor Robert Lawrence. He also favoured Charlton Heston and Sophia 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) owed Paramount $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 in Switzerland. "The company had an account in Zurich 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 President Bill 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 in Argentina with Robert Taylor, Dr. Coppelius (1966) and Fort Saganne (1984), a French film with Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve. A planned epic on the life of Isabella of Spain never materialised.
In 1962, Bronston was awarded a Special Merit Golden Globe Award for El Cid.
Bronston died of pneumonia secondary to Alzheimer's disease at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, California. He is buried in Las Rozas, Madrid, Spain. He was survived by a son Dr William Bronston.
References [link]
- ”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. 28
External links [link]
https://wn.com/Samuel_Bronston
Samuel
Samuel (/ˈsæm.juː.əl/;Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֵל, Modern Shmu'el, Tiberian Šəmûʼēl; Arabic: صموئيل Ṣamuil; Greek: Σαμουήλ Samouēl; Latin: Samvel; Strong's: Shemuwel), literally meaning "Name of God" in Hebrew, is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur'an, although not by name.
His status, as viewed by rabbinical literature, is that he was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras. According to the text of the Books of Samuel, he also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel: Saul and David.
Biblical account
Family
Samuel's mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Elkanah lived at Rama-thaim in the district of Zuph. His genealogy is also found in a pedigree of the Kohathites (1 Chron. 6:3-15) and in that of Heman, his great-grandson (ib. vi. 18-22). According to the genealogical tables, Elkanah was a Levite - a fact otherwise not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah (Judges 17:7, for example).
Samuel (Raffi novel)
Samuel (Սամվել Samvel) is an 1886 Armenian language novel by the novelist Raffi. Considered by some critics his most successful work, the plot centres on the killing of the fourth-century Prince Vahan Mamikonian and his wife by their son Samuel.
Translations
References
Samuel of Nehardea
Samuel of Nehardea or Samuel bar Abba (Hebrew: שמואל or שמואל ירחינאה) was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Babylonia, known as an Amora of the first generation; son of Abba bar Abba and head of the Yeshiva at Nehardea. He was a teacher of halakha, judge, physician, and astronomer. He was born about 165 CE at Nehardea, in Babylonia and died there about 257 CE. As in the case of many other great men, a number of legendary stories are connected with his birth (comp. Halakot Gedolot, Giṭṭin, end; Tos. Ḳid. 73a s.v. Mai Ikka). In Talmudic texts, Samuel is frequently associated with Abba Arika, with whom he debated on many major issues. He was the teacher of Rabbi Judah ben Ezekiel. From the little biographical information gleaned from the Talmud, we know that Samuel was never ordained as a Tanna, that he was very precise with his words (Kidd. 70), and that he had a special affinity for astronomy: one of his best known sayings was that "The paths of heaven are as clear to me as the pathways of Nehardea."
