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Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) was an American film producer and director. Born into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry. He would learn all aspects of filmmaking and become a highly successful Hollywood producer for more than forty years. Katzman produced cost-effective productions that made money for the studios and the financial backers. He is noted for numerous Western films of the 1930s, his Bela Lugosi and East Side Kids features of the 1940s, the 15-chapter Superman serial of 1948,... MORE

Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) was an American film producer and director. Born into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry. He would learn all aspects of filmmaking and become a highly successful Hollywood producer for more than forty years. Katzman produced cost-effective productions that made money for the studios and the financial backers. He is noted for numerous Western films of the 1930s, his Bela Lugosi and East Side Kids features of the 1940s, the 15-chapter Superman serial of 1948, and a string of rock-'n'-roll musicals in the 1950s. At MGM Studios in the 1960s, Katzman produced several Elvis Presley films and singer Roy Orbison's only film, The Fastest Guitar Alive. Born in New York City to Abraham and Rebecca Katzman, Katzman entered the film industry shortly before World War I, as an errand boy at the old Fox Film Corporation, which was then making low-budget short films at their studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. As a mail carrier, prop boy, and laboratory messenger, carrying cans of exposed film back and forth to the lab, Katzman quickly learned all the angles of the LESS