Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, 1943

Awards presented March 2, 1944

Hal B. Wallis

This was the second Thalberg for Wallis, presented before the honor was limited to a one-time-only recognition. But it came to him at a particularly crucial point in his career: He had produced the year's best-picture winner, Casablanca, but at the time the award went to the studio, not the producer responsible for the film. (The rule was changed at the 1951 awards.) So although Wallis produced more best-picture nominees than anyone else in Oscar history, he never really won an Oscar, even for this one. At the awards ceremony, studio head Jack Warner raced to the podium to accept the statuette. Wallis claimed that a phalanx of Warner family members blocked him from even joining Warner on the stage. The following year, Wallis left Warner Bros. to form an independent producing company, which released its movies through Paramount. But his post-Warners career was comparatively less successful, ranging from Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedies and Elvis Presley musicals through a trio of arty historical dramas: Becket, Anne of the Thousand Days, and Mary, Queen of Scots.