YOUNG KING DAVID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73-00475R000400860001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 16, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 23, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT IN VI( VY
RIM/ .nne
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/12/16: CIA-RDP73-00475R000400860001-9
Young King David
The young man padding around the
large office on Sunset Strip in slippers
looks like the stereotype of the fireball
Hollywood flack. A monogram decorates
the shirt bought at Sy Devore's fashion-
able haberdashery; a small onyx ring
glitters on his right pinkie; and from his
round face protrudes a large Bock Pane-
tela cigar. But David Wolper is no
_
e bought two years ago, went to Metro-
media. Wolper himself received 69,551
shares of the combine and retains con-
trol over his films as a vice president.
A graduate of New York's P.S. 6,
Wolper attended Drake University and
the University of Southern California
and spent his summers as a waiter in
the Catskills. Then, when he was 20,
he acquired a partner, Jim Harris (now
of Harris-Kubrick Pictures), borrowed
$10,000 and started selling TV film
shorts. "I used to be out on the road for
three months at a time," he said. "It was
a lonely, miserable life." Certainly it was
a far cry from his Georgian house in
Holmby Hills which he shares with his
wife, former starlet Margaret Dawn, two
sons, a Siberian husky, and two poodles.
By 1958, he was able to form his own
company, Wolper Productions. He also
got his first taste of the networks' os-
trich-like policy against the work of in-
dependent filmmakers. "It's like saying
Newsweek?Bob Grosh
Wolper: 'We report and entertain. We don't just report'
press agent. At 35, he is by all odds
America's most successful producer of
film documentaries, the man who last
May won four Emmy awards for "The
Making of the President 1960."
"History, that's my business," says
? Wolper. Few men have made history
. pay so well. Since he broke into the
infant field of television in 1949 by
peddling short subjects station-to-station,
j he has sold more than $10 million worth
t of films for television, has bought enough
Los Angeles real estate to make his
' personal land holdings worth some
? $10 million, and has built a production
01 company worth $3.6 million, which he
sold last month to Metromedia, Inc.,
just so he could get the money to "carry
out expansion and diversification plans."
? All of Wolper's 200 employees, plus
such companies as Wolper Television
Sales, Inc., and Paramount News, which
nobody can paint an art piece but one
painter," says Wolper. "If you don't work
for NBC or CBS, you're dead."
Of the three networks, only ABC has
relented on its policy, broadcasting Wol-
per's "The Making of the President
1960." "ABC has v"hat I consider the
best attitude," says Wolper. "They con-
sider each case on its merit." ABC has
already contracted for six Wolper spe-
cials this year, including "The Feminine
Mystique," based on Betty Friedan's in-
dictment of American housewives, which
will be shown next spring.
Revenge: However successful CBS
and NBC have been in keeping Wol-
per's shows off their networks, the pro-
ducer got his revenge at the Democratic
conventions. His tribute to President
Kennedy, "1,000 Days," was aired on all
three networks at once to thunderous
applause. The film will be rerun by
..'NEW-TV, the Metromedia station in
New York, on Nov. 22.
Wolper's films on President Kennedy
?the two television documentaries and
the feature-length "Four Days in No-
vember" which ran briefly in movie
houses?are typical examples of the dif-
ference between Wolper's filmmaking
techniques and those of other docu-
_mentarists. Unlike such firms as Robe
Drew Associates ("The Chair," "Lett'
From Vietnam"), who use a cinenao
veritd technique of shooting entirely I,
scene, Wolper relies heavily on patch
ing together old pieces of footage for
dramatic effect. Some reviewers ha?,
criticized him on the 'ground that the,'
technique is timeworn, but Wolper de-
? fends it.
? ? Technique: "I created a service," he
said. "I synthesized those four
When people want to show their clic
dren what happened, going to get t
calls from them?not NBC, where they
have it on 900 hours of tape, not Pa.-1,-
mount News which has 4 million feet."'
Still, the Wolper technique is limited
? by the available amount. of film on
subject. "There's an old story around
here," he said. "Everybody told me,
'Why not do a show on gangsters in the
'30s?' I'll tell you why. There's a shot of
Al. Capone- with his hat over his face.
There's a shot of another guy with his
hat over his face. I've got about 50 shok
of gangsters in the '30s with their hats
over their faces."
? I3ut if Wolper feels pinched uy the
lack of subject matter for his films, he
isn't showing it. He has just made a
six-picture deal with United Artists, has
recently sold fifteen more specials, is
branching out into pay and educational
TV ("What more perfect field for a
.documentary producer dealing in his-
tory?"), and has been working all duriti:f
the Presidential campaign on "The Mak-
ing of the President 1964." As Theodore
? H. White researched the book, Wolper
? had two crews following each of the can- '
didates, with one crew alternating be-
tween Miller and Humphrey. The
will be released in the fall of 191,1
The Story: With a puff of Panetcht
Wolper 'spoke of his own interest ill his-
tory?an-interest that has rewarded him
well. "I enjoy following the story! , of
something like the election campaign,"
,he said. "Things happen every day,' like.
a mystery. You can't beat that story."
The reception his films get shows that'
these instincts put him on a popular
wave length, but already he may be
'slipping into the mire. of commercialism.
Currently, Wolper plans three fall se-
'ries. One, called "Stop the Camera," will
have contestants identify cities from
newsreels. Another soporific, "Miss U.S.
TV," will be a weekly beauty contest
"We report and entertain," said Wolper.
? "We don't just report."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/12/16: CIA-RDP73-00475R000400860001-9