In Remembrance: Armand Deutsch

     Armand Deutsch, a one-time producer for MGM Studios in the 1950s, has passed away in Los Angeles on August 13, 2005. He was 92.

     Born in 1913 in Chicago, Deutsch was the grandson of Julius Rosewald, chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck & Company. As the child of wealthy, socialite parents, the 11-year-old Deutsch was targeted by infamous thrill-killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. However, when the family chauffeur picked him up at school for a dentist appoint on the afternoon that the duo had planned to kidnap him, they abducted and murdered 14-year-old Robert Franks instead.

     Graduating from the University of Chicago, Deutsch worked in the investment business, first in Chicago and then New York City. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II.

     Following the war Deutsch relocated to Los Angeles, with the intent of becoming a film producer. Although his first project, a self-financed attempt to produce an adaptation of the popular Taylor Caldwell novel This Side Of Innocence fell through, he still managed to secure a job at MGM. During his nine-year tenure, he only produced 11 films, starting with the 1949 western Ambush. Among the films he produced are the Academy Award nominated bio-pic of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes The Magnificent Yankee (1950), Carbine Williams (1952) with Jimmy Stewart, The Girl Who Had Everything (1953) with Elizabeth Taylor and the noir Slander (1956). His last film was the western Saddle The Wind (1958). He also served for a time on the board of directors of Warner Brothers Studio. He wrote the book Me and Bogie, and Other Friends and Acquaintances From a Life in Hollywood and Beyond about his career which was published in 1991.