Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, 1938

Awards presented February 23, 1939

Hal B. Wallis with his Thalberg Award

For some reason, the Academy decided this year to announce the "nominees" for the Thalberg Award, even though the honor was bestowed by a committee rather than the general electorate of the Academy. The others considered for the Thalberg were Samuel Goldwyn, Joe Pasternak, David O. Selznick, Hunt Stromberg, Walter Wanger, and Darryl F. Zanuck. (Goldwyn and Selznick would go on later to win the award, and Zanuck had already won it. Pasternak, Stromberg, and Wanger would be left out in the cold.)  

That Wallis should follow Zanuck as the second winner of the Thalberg seems appropriate: He had joined Warner Bros. as a publicist in 1923, and became a producer in 1931 on Little Caesar. He and Zanuck jockeyed for the position of head of production, and Zanuck won out, but when Zanuck moved on to 20th Century (later to be merged with Fox) in 1933, Wallis took over his role. He was thus a leader in making Warner Bros. a major force in the Hollywood of the 1930s and early 1940s. He left Warners in 1944 -- after a bit of a tiff with Jack Warner over the credit for producing one of the studio's most successful films, Casablanca -- and formed an independent production company. His subsequent production output was perhaps not as distinguished as it was at Warners, but he achieved financial success with the series of movies starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and with several Elvis Presley films.