Biography
Pandro Samuel Berman (March 28, 1905 – July 13, 1996), also known as Pan Berman, was an American film producer.
During the 1920s, Berman worked as an assistant director under Mal St. Clair and Ralph Ince. In 1930, he was hired as a film editor at RKO Radio Pictures and later became an assistant producer. When RKO supervising producer William LeBaron left during the troubled production of The Gay Diplomat (1931), Berman assumed LeBaron's duties and remained in that role until 1939.
After David O. Selznick took over as chief of production at RKO in October 1931, Berman retained his position despite Selznick's widespread staff cuts. Selznick appointed Berman as producer for the adaptation of Fannie Hurst's short story Night Bell, which chronicles a Jewish doctor's rise from the Lower East Side ghetto to becoming a prominent Park Avenue physician. Selznick retitled the film Symphony of Six Million and insisted on restoring references to Jewish ethnic life. The film was both a critical and box-office success. Berman later described it as the "first good movie" he had produced, and both he and Selznick took pride in the project.
During Berman's tenure, the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals were produced, Katharine Hepburn gained fame, and RKO classics such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Gunga Din (both 1939) were completed.
Feeling sidelined by a power shift at RKO that reduced his influence, Berman moved to MGM in 1940. There, he oversaw productions including Ziegfeld Girl (1941), National Velvet (1944), The Bribe (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), Blackboard Jungle (1955), and Butterfield 8 (1960).
He weathered several executive changes at MGM and stayed with the studio until 1963 before transitioning to independent production. His final project was the unsuccessful film Move (1970).
Berman received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1976. Six of his films earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture: The Gay Divorcee (1934), Alice Adams and Top Hat (both 1935), Stage Door (1937), Father of the Bride (1950), and Ivanhoe (1952).
He passed away from congestive heart failure on July 13, 1996, at his home in Beverly Hills at the age of 91. Berman was laid to rest at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.
