Paul Schreibman

Paul Schreibman was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1909. He first moved to Los Angeles on a football scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC), where he also studied law and eventually became an entertainment attorney to clients as various as Milton Berle and Japan's Toho Studios. As Toho's lawyer, Schreibman brokered the deal that turned Toho's smash hit in Japan Gojira (1954) into a smash American hit, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956). He performed similar deals for Toho at least through the end of the 1950s, and was instrumental in expanding the company's visibility in North America. In the 1940s and 1950s, Schreibman also owned and operated a number of Los Angeles movie theaters, including the Belasco, Coronet and Las Palmas. Schreibman remained married to actress Lois Collier until her death in 1999.