Donald Crisp - Hollywood Power Broker

Hollywood Power Broker

While known to audiences as a talented actor and director, few outside the film community realised, then or now, that Crisp was one of the most influential people in Hollywood, wielding more power than most directors, producers and studio executives.

Crisp was an active and important liaison between the film industry and outside business interests. His extensive business, military and entertainment experience, including being a production and studio executive lent themselves well to this task. He became a highly valued adviser whose clear-headed forward thinking proved invaluable to the Bank of America, which was one of the leading sources of working capital for the film industry for many years (an industry whose life blood was loans). Crisp served on the bank's advisory board for several decades, including a stint as its chairman. In this role, he had the ear of its board of directors, and many of the films eventually financed by the bank during the 1930s and 1940s got their most important approval from Crisp.