Jack Wrather - Movies and Television

Movies and Television

After the war, Wrather bought a home in Hollywood and became a movie producer, founding Jack Wrather Productions. In 1946, he produced his first movie, The Guilty, starring Bonita Granville, whom he would later marry.

By 1955, he had produced six more movies, including High Tide, Perilous Waters, Strike It Rich and Guilty of Treason.

Wrather purchased 70 percent share of the television station KOTV in Tulsa, Oklahoma from fellow oil millionaire George Cameron. The other 30 percent was owned by station manager Maria Helen Alvarez and commercial manager John Hill. Wrather knew nothing about the management of a station and offered to increase Alvarez and Hill to 50 per cent of the stock in exchange for their services.

Hill wanted to move on to real estate, so Wrather agreed to purchase his shares and increase Alvarez to 50 per cent owner in the new Wrather-Alvarez Television and Wrather-Alvarez Broadcasting companies.

Wrather-Alvarez went on to purchase the San Diego television and radio stations KFMB-TV and KFMB in 1953 and New York radio station WNEW in 1955. Television station KOTV was sold in 1954 when Alvarez relocated to the San Diego station. Wrather-Alvarez also owned the Construction Permit for WJDW-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, which was donated to the WGBH Educational Foundation in 1965, and now being operated as non-commercial station WGBX-TV.

Wrather-Alvarez also financed and owned the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. Walt Disney asked Wrather to build the Disneyland Hotel when Disney had exhausted his credit in building the Disneyland theme park. The hotel was completed in 1955, and immediately shared the success of Disneyland. When Disney later attempted to buy the hotel, Wrather refused to sell.

In 1954, Wrather-Alvarez purchased the complete rights to The Lone Ranger and took over production of the television series (1954-1957). The corporation also purchased the Lassie television series in 1956 and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon in 1957.

The Wrather-Alvarez relationship did not end well because Wrather had discovered that "Miss" Alvarez had married former partner John Hill when he had been "bought out" and his shares given to Alvarez. Wrather unsuccessfully sued Alvarez and Hill for fraud.

In 1958, Wrather bought Alvarez's shares of Wrather-Alvarez and became sole owner of its television and hotel assets. The Wrather-Alvarez holdings were distributed into separate companies: Wrather Hotels, Lone Ranger Inc., Lone Ranger Television, Lone Ranger Pictures, and Lassie Television.

The Independent Television Corporation was formed as a joint venture between Jack Wrather and the British Incorporated Television Company in 1958. In September 1958, Independent Television Corporation purchased TPA for $11,350,000. The company operated primarily as a distribution service for syndicating television shows produced by Wrather or the British ITC company. Wrather later (about 1959-60) sold his shares of Independent Television Corporation to ITC.

He was also the founder of Los Angeles public television station KCET.

Wrather is known as the man that 'sued the mask off the Lone Ranger'. When a new theatrical movie version of the Lone Ranger was being produced during the late 1970s, Wrather obtained a court order requiring Clayton Moore to quit making public appearances as the Lone Ranger. This resulted in a great deal of negative publicity and The Legend of the Lone Ranger released in 1981 was not well received. Before Wrather died, he gave permission for Clayton Moore to resume making public appearances in costume.