Verna Fields - Management For Universal Studios

Management For Universal Studios

Shortly after the completion of Jaws in 1975, Fields was hired by Universal Studios as an executive consultant. Some insight into Universal's reasons for hiring her can be gleaned from the fact that during the filming of Jaws, in addition to her editing, Fields had been "omnipresent...at Spielberg's beck and call by means of a walkie-talkie. Often she would shuttle back and forth on her bike between the producers in town and Spielberg at the dock for last-minute decisions". The producers of Jaws were David Brown and Richard Zanuck. Along with Brown, Zanuck, and Peter Benchley (the book's author), Fields helped promote Jaws on the "talk show circuit" in the eight months before its saturation release to 464 theaters on 20 June 1975 Fields had plainly earned the confidence of the producers and of the studio executives at Universal.

Throughout her career, Fields had worked independently, but in 1976, and following the unexpected success of Jaws, she accepted a position as the Feature-Production Vice-President with Universal. She was thus among the first women to hold high executive positions with the major studios. In a 1982 interview, Fields was quoted as saying, "I got a lot of credit for Jaws, rightly or wrongly."

Fields had come "up from the cutting room floor" and out of the customary, near-anonymity of film editors. Regarding this change in her career path, Fields told Peary in 1980 that "All these young filmmakers are possessive. They feel I belong to them, and they feel a certain resentment - that I went to the other side. In calmer moments, of course, they know it isn't true, that I can do more for them now." Of Fields' work at Universal, Joel Schumacher was quoted in 1982 as saying: "In the record business, you have Berry Gordy and Ahmet Ertegün. They're executives who actually made records. In the movie business, as an executive who's worked with film, you have only Verna. She saves Universal a fortune...every day."