Sam Warner - Death

Death

Sam died the day before The Jazz Singer made its debut in New York City, which he planned to attend. At age 40, he succumbed to complications from a sinus infection; According to Hollywood Be Thy Name, the 1993 memoir of Jack Warner, Jr., and Cass Warner Sperling, late character actor William Demarest claimed that Sam Warner was murdered by his own brothers. This allegation, leveled in 1977, was never corroborated, and Demarest's reliability was questioned because of his long dependence on alcohol; the last time that Sam would meet with his entire family was at his parent's wedding anniversary in 1926. In September, Jack—who was working nonstop with Sam on production of The Jazz Singer—noticed that Sam started having severe headaches and nosebleeds. By the end of the month, Sam was unable to walk straight. Sam was then hospitalized and was diagnosed with a sinus infection. Unfortunately, the sinus infection soon developed into an acute mastoid infection. The untreated infection then became systemic in Warner's body. Sam's infection soon developed into pneumonia, and on October 5, 1927, Sam died from a cerebral hemorrhage as doctors were trying to remove infected cells from his brain.

As the family grieved over Sam's sudden passing, the success of The Jazz Singer helped establish Warner Bros. as a major studio. While Warner Bros. invested only $500,000 in the film, the studio reaped $3 million in profits. Hollywood's five major studios, which controlled most of the nation's movie theaters, initially attempted to block the growth of "talking pictures". In the face of such organized opposition, Warner Bros. produced 12 "talkies" in 1928 alone. The following year, the newly formed Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences recognized Warner Bros. for "revolutionizing the industry with sound".