Saul Zaentz (born February 28, 1921 in Passaic, New Jersey) is a record company executive and film producer. After serving in the United States Army during World War II he began realizing his passion for music as a distributor for "Granz's Jazz Record" company, a job that included managing concert tours for greats like Duke Ellington and Stan Getz. In 1955 he joined Fantasy Records, for many years the largest independent jazz record label in the world. Fantasy Records was sold to independent jazz label Concord in 2005 for $80 million.

In 1967 Zaentz purchased the Fantasy label and in 1975 began using the company to move on to his second passion, the movie industry. Zaentz himself takes a very active role in the movies he produces, especially in the film's editing, marketing, and distributing.

Fantasy Records owns the rights to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Zaentz has had a long-running disagreement about this with former CCR singer/songwriter John Fogerty. The songs "Vanz Kant Danz" (originally "Zanz Kant Danz", but changed for legal reasons) and "Mr. Greed", from Fogerty's album Centerfield are thinly veiled slams of him.

He has received an Oscar for three of his films, all winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984), both directed by Miloš Forman, and The English Patient (1996) directed by Anthony Minghella. At the 69th Academy Awards Zaentz also accepted The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for life achievement.

Through Tolkien Enterprises, Saul Zaentz owns the worldwide film, stage, and merchandise rights to J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. In 2005 Zaentz embarked on a new film project, producing "Goya's Ghosts," a biopic of Spanish painter Francisco Goya, to be directed by long-time collaborator Milos Forman, screenplay by Jean-Claude Carriere.

In 1980 Zaentz created The Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, California. As of 2005 it is used as an editing and sound mixing studio for many Academy Award winning films.

In 2004 Zaentz sold Fantasy to a consortium led by Norman Lear and merged with Concord Records. Shortly after Fantasy left Zaentz's control, Fogerty signed a recording contract with Fantasy, reuniting him with the label that still owns the rights to much of his music after more than thirty years.

1921 births | Living people | American World War II veterans | American film producers | Jewish-American businesspeople | People from New Jersey

Saul Zaentz