Samuel J. Briskin

Bespeckled Sam Briskin was a key executive in CBC (Cohn-Brandt-Cohn) Film Sales. CBC's financial operations were ran out of New York by Jack Cohn and Joe Brandt, with Harry Cohn soon moving west to Hollywood to secure production facilities and produce films. In the early years CBC steadfastly refused to buy a studio, preferring to lease space and rent equipment at the old Balshofer Studios on Hollywood Boulevard and at the Independent Studios on Sunset and Gower -- which was known as Poverty Row or Gower Gulch, which did nothing for the firm's reputation (Gower was populated by fly-by-night film companies such as Educational Pictures, a notoriously seedy studio where careers went to die). CBC's earliest releases utilized excess unexposed film stock purchased from other studios. Initially hired as an underpaid auditor, Sam quickly rose within the company's Hollywood ranks thanks to his ability to tactfully negotiate CBC's contracts; tact not being a gift that his tight-fisted boss Harry Cohn possessed. CBC's productions, while profitable, met with derision in the industry -- the company was nicknamed "Corned Beef and Cabbage" Productions, a tag that enraged Harry Cohn. And an enraged Harry Cohn was a monster. By the time the company's name changed to the loftier-sounding Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10, 1924, Sam was Harry's second-in-command. Sam helped guide Harry through several important business decisions that would pay huge dividends over the next three decades: he backed the company's decision to reject theater ownership, supported Cohn's concept (out of sheer cheapness, if nothing else) of hiring talent, with the notable exceptions of director Frank Capra, Peter Lorre (who was largely loaned out), and, The Three Stooges comedy team (which came inexpensively enough to justify) on a per-picture basis -- whenever Columbia tended to use big stars, they were usually the result of other studios who used the poverty row studio as a lesson in humility. Both Warner Brothers and MGM routinely loaned out stars to the studio whenever it was felt they'd become too demanding or picky about scripts. Briskin negotiated the contracts and Cohn would invariably place them in Capra's films, usually to great success throughout the 1930's. Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) was the single most important production in the studio's history; the relatively low budgeted film starred Claudette Colbert and MGM's Clark Gable, both of whom bristled at working anywhere near Gower Gulch. The film earned lowly Columbia its first Best Picture Oscar and awards for its stars, director and screenplay adaption, propelling it into the ranks of the major studios. Once his company attained major-studio status, Cohn was forced to pay higher salaries to A-list stars, which often caused him fits. Columbia only began cultivating its own stars on contract late in the decade, and ironically, it usually took a contractee being loaned out to another studio to prove to him he had a valuable asset on his hands. Although a man of remarkable business instincts, Harry Cohn was undoubtedly the most hated of all the major studio executives due to his innumerable character flaws: he was explosive, uneducated, extremely crude and would cuss out anyone at the slightest perceived fault (imagine say, a shorter meaner Wallace Beery, only vastly more influential). But it was also true that out of these faults, Cohn recognized that he needed Sam's expertise -- the two men often fought (Cohn fought with everyone). With Columbia's rise within the industry, Sam's reputation grew as moderating force to Cohn's near-impossible nature. In the 1940's he was placed in charge of the studio's B-pictures, an important part of the studio's remarkable financial success and one that it would never abandon during Cohn's reign. Stars such as 'Glenn Ford', William Holden and Rita Hayworth were cultivated and the studio enjoyed its first real blockbuster with The Jolson Story (1946), which grossed a then-whopping $8 million during its initial release. The Cohn-Briskin team wisely embraced television (with the exception of Paramount, this decision met with loud derision elsewhere in Hollywood) in the early 1950's, creating the Screen Gems subsidiary (headed by Harry's nephew Ralph) and weathered the turmoil of the decade in relatively good shape, bringing newcomers Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon on board as contract stars. Harry Cohn's death of a heart attack in 1958 was the end of an era at the studio and Sam was promoted by the board of directors as head of production. He led Columbia through the even more turbulent early 1960's, scoring big hits with _The Guns of Navarone (1961)_ and 'David Lean''s Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Meanwhile Screen Gems became a dominant force in television production, most notably with the long-running hit CBS series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and its numerous rural comedy spin-offs. Sam Briskin died in 1968, having successfully transitioned the company away from Cohn's iron-fisted dictatorial rule.