Sam Katzman

Who was Sam Katzman?

Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. 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 was a Hollywood producer for more than 40 years.

Katzman produced low-budget genre films, including serials, which had proportionally high returns for the studios and his financial backers. He is known for numerous westerns of the '30s, his Bela Lugosi and East Side Kids features of the '40s, the 15-chapter Superman serial of 1948 and a string of rock-'n'-roll musicals in the '50s. At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the '60s Katzman produced several Elvis Presley films and singer Roy Orbison's only film, The Fastest Guitar Alive.

He is the uncle of television producer Leonard Katzman. Sam Katzman died on August 4, 1973, in Hollywood. He is interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.