Saul Zaentz Net Worth

Saul Zaentz net worth is $30 Million

Saul Zaentz Wiki Biography

Saul Zaentz, born on the 28th of February 1921 in Passaic, New Jersey USA, was a film producer known for his three-time Academy Award wins and work on renowned films such as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), “Amadeus” (1985), “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” (1988), and “The English Patient” (1996). He passed away in 2014.

Have you ever wondered about the wealth accumulated by this veteran of the moviemaking industry? Sources estimate that Saul Zaentz’s net worth, as of early 2017, would be over $30 million, gathered through his career as a film producer which was active between 1975 and 2006.

Saul Zaentz Net Worth $30 million

Saul Zaentz served in the US Army during World War II after attending William B. Cruz Memorial School No. 11 in his hometown, and later enrolled at Rutgers University. He found interest in music and began working for Norman Ganz, a chairman of a record company and creator of Jazz at the Philharmonic programs. In 1955 Zaentz associated with Fantasy Records and in 1967 he became one of its co-owners providing a record contract for rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival. These engagements laid the foundation for Saul Zaentz’s net worth.

In the early 1970s, Zaentz became involved in producing motion pictures after seeing the stage play adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. This eventually led to his co-production of the eponymous 1975 Miloš Forman’s movie adaptation which featured Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher in the leading roles. For his involvement, Zaentz was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Picture.

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In 1977, Zaentz produced Keith Merrill’s western drama “Three Warriors”, before producing an animated adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy “The Lord of The Rings” in 1978. In 1980, Saul founded his own production company – The Saul Zaentz Film Center (later rebranded to The Saul Zaentz Company). As an avid reader, he preferred producing and adapting novels into movies, rather than original scripts and screenplays. In 1984, he collaborated with Forman again and produced “Amadeus”, a biographical drama about the influential composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This engagement, apart from earning him another Academy Award for Best Picture, also dramatically increased the size of Saul Zaentz’s wealth.

Throughout the next decade, Zaentz produced several more motion pictures based on novels including “The Mosquito Coast” (1986) and “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” (1991). In 1996, Saul won his third Oscar for Best Picture for producing the romantic war drama “The English Patient” starring Ralph Fiennes, Willem Dafoe, and Juliette Binoche in the leading roles. Zaentz’s last work, and an exception from his “rule”, was another Forman motion picture, the 2006 biographical drama about the famous Spanish painter Francisco Goya named “Goya’s Ghosts”. All these achievements had a positive impact on the total amount of Saul Zaentz’s net worth.

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Regarding his personal life, Saul Zaentz was married twice. Between 1960 and 1975, he was married to Celia, ex-wife of Charlie Mingus, with whom he had four children. He later married Lynda Redfield, and that marriage also ended in divorce several years later. Saul passed away at the age of 92, on the 3rd of January 2014, in San Francisco, California, due to complications caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

Apart from his career in the moviemaking industry, Saul Zaentz was regularly active in various charity causes, including his own The Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation which he created in 1997.