Hunt Stromberg Jr. (May 16, 1923 – November 24, 1986) was a Broadway,

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

and

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of video production on a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television net ...

best remembered for the discovery and casting of

Maila Nurmi Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi (December 11, 1922 – January 10, 2008), known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was an American actress who created the campy 1950s character Vampira. She was raised in Astoria, Oregon, where she worked in tuna and sa ...

as Vampira, and for producing the 1973 film '' Frankenstein: The True Story''.

Life and career

Stromberg was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, on May 16, 1923, the son of legendary

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...

and independent producer Hunt Stromberg. He began his career as a producer with the successful revival of Victor Herbert's '' The Red Mill'' in 1945 - which, at age 23, made him the youngest producer on Broadway. He followed-up with revivals of ''

The Front Page ''The Front Page'' is a Broadway comedy about newspaper reporters on the police beat. Written by former Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, it was first produced in 1928 and has been adapted for the cinema several times. Plot The ...

'' in 1946 and '' Sally'' in 1948. In the early 1950s Stromberg was program director for KABC-TV, a Los Angeles

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

-TV affiliate, and was looking for a host for a late-night horror movie program. He remembered seeing a beautiful, wasp-waisted woman win first prize at a

masquerade ball A masquerade ball (or ''bal masqué'') is an event in which many participants attend in costume wearing a mask. (Compare the word "masque"—a formal written and sung court pageant.) Less formal "costume parties" may be a descendant of this tra ...

dressed as a ghoul. After months of searching he tracked down

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

/ model

and in 1954 they created Vampira. An overnight, nationwide success, the oft-copied character was to remain popular for decades. By the late 1950s Stromberg was a protégé of James Aubrey and followed him to CBS when he became top programming executive there, involved with such shows as '' The Beverly Hillbillies'', ''

Hogan's Heroes ''Hogan's Heroes'' is an American television sitcom set in a Nazi German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II. It ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971, on the CBS network, the longest broadcast ...

'', ''

Gilligan's Island ''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells. It aired for thr ...

'', ''

Green Acres ''Green Acres'' is an American television sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to ''Petticoat Junction'', the series was first broadcast on ...

'', and ''

Lost in Space ''Lost in Space'' is an American science fiction television series, created and produced by Irwin Allen, which originally aired between 1965 and 1968 on CBS. The series was inspired by the 1812 novel ''The Swiss Family Robinson.'' The series fo ...

''. Due to corporate in-fighting, he brought about the cancellation of '' The Judy Garland Show'', and together with Aubrey was ousted from CBS in 1965. As an independent TV producer Stromberg turned to the horror genre and produced '' Frankenstein: The True Story'' in 1973, which is "Considered by many to be the finest film version of this classic tale." Following that project, he began work on a made-for-TV film adaptation of Jane Austen's ''

Pride and Prejudice ''Pride and Prejudice'' is an 1813 novel of manners by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreci ...

,'' which was never completed. (His father had produced the 1940 MGM adaptation of the novel, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.) In 1980 he executive produced '' The Curse of King Tut's Tomb'' and at the time of his death held the movie

option Option or Options may refer to: Computing *Option key, a key on Apple computer keyboards *Option type, a polymorphic data type in programming languages *Command-line option, an optional parameter to a command *OPTIONS, an HTTP request method ...

for

Robert Bloch Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small ...

's book ''

Night of the Ripper ''Night of the Ripper'' is a 1984 novel written by American writer Robert Bloch. Plot The story is set during the reign of Queen Victoria and follows the investigation of Inspector Abberline in attempting to apprehend Jack the Ripper and inclu ...

''. Hunt Stromberg Jr. was married to Marilyn Elwell from 1947 to 1949. He died on November 24, 1986, in Los Angeles, California - where he was born - of a ruptured

aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also be a nidus (s ...

References

External links

* * 1923 births 1986 deaths Businesspeople from Los Angeles American theatre managers and producers Television producers from California Deaths from aneurysm 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-tv-producer-stub