Otto Preminger

Had you any idea what was going to happen [with the Nazis]?

No. Nobody had. As a matter of fact, I'll tell you something. The Nazis were what had been Germany? And my father, who was originally Attorney General of the Austrian Empire and then a very well-known lawyer, laughed. He said, They never come here, it's nonsense. And I'm very happy to tell you that when they did come in 1938, the president of the police of Vienna was his friend. We put him on a plane with my mother to Zurich, and this is how he was saved. My brother had to walk across the border to Czechoslovakia with his wife and his daughter. And so I was lucky, and we were all lucky to escape.

Was this [becoming independent] because you didn't get on very well with Darryl Zanuck?

No, that was not the reason. The reason was that I wanted complete autonomy. It's not that I did get along with him very well when I was successful. You see, there was one thing about the studio once you were successful, the studios competed with each other for the successful people. So you had a certain power and Zanuck would not let me go unless my contract was over or I really wanted very badly to go. There were very few independent producers at that time. This is what, 25 years ago. I was one of the first ones. But when I started a few other people became independent producers and they were backed, financed by major studios, so they had outlets. But you had to work through the major studios for getting started. No, I didn't have to work through them. No, they financed me and they released the pictures, but I had complete autonomy. I had the right to cut it. The right to to hire the screenplay writer, the right was all like now.

Actors say you're very tough on the set, an ogre. Who told you that?

You are incredible. You read things and you believe everything bad about me. … I don't deny it. No. The only thing that I don't like, I can't stand, are actors who are late or who don't learn their lines. Otherwise, I'm very patient. For instance, the man with the golden arm, you know, was Kim Novak, who already was a star. She had done two pictures at Columbia, and I borrowed her from Columbia Pictures. Sinatra but the dialogue that she spoke on the stage was never used in the picture. She then afterwards dubbed it so she could repeat it and repeat it. I didn't like that, I don't like it. So sometimes we had to do a scene thirty-five times and both. Sinatra and I were very patient. So don't say I'm tough. Take it back. Right, take it back. Okay. You're lucky that you did.