Ingo Preminger, Producer

Ingo Preminger, who produced the film “MASH” and prior to that was a literary agent for many years, died at his home in Huntington Palisades on June 7. He was 95. Ingo represented several top blacklisted writers during and after the McCarthy era including Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr., Michael Wilson, Hugo Butler, Hal Smith and Ned Young. During his career as an agent he frequently worked with his brother, producer/director Otto Preminger, supplying writing and other talent for his older brother’s films, including Walter Newman, who wrote the screenplay for “The Man with the Golden Arm” and Trumbo, whose credit on “Exodus” was critical in ending the blacklist in Hollywood. Ingo’s role in assisting blacklisted writers has been written about in numerous books including Mr. Trumbo’s “Additional Dialogue, Victor Nevasky’s “Naming Names” and Jean Rouverol Butler’s “Refugees from Hollywood.” Ingo also guided the careers of several directors, cinematographers, composers and actors. Born in Romania on February 25, 1911, Ingo was the son of Markus Preminger, an internationally prominent lawyer and prosecutor, and Josefa Frankl Preminger. He was raised in Vienna, where he received his law degree from the University of Vienna and began a career as an attorney, which ended prematurely due to the Nazis’ invasion of Austria. Ingo emigrated to the United States in 1938 with his wife, Kate, and three-year-old daughter, Eve. He initially settled in New York, where he owned a paint supply business and where he and Kate had two more children, Kathy and Jim. In 1947, Ingo moved his family to Los Angeles, got a job with the Nat Goldstone Agency, and, one year later, opened the Ingo Preminger Agency. In 1961 he sold his agency to General Artists Corporation, one of the three top talent agencies of the time. He headed GAC’s west coast literary department until 1966, when he left the agency business to become a producer. Ingo was sent the manuscript to the novel “MASH” by his former client Ring Lardner, Jr. Ingo read it and, as recounted in a May 21, 2006 Los Angeles Times article on Richard Zanuck, “gave Zanuck the book “MASH” to read on the condition that if he liked it, Preminger could produce it. Zanuck called the next day. “I told Ingo, ‘sell the agency,'” Zanuck said. ‘”You’ve got an office on the third floor. We’re making the picture.'” Among the many recognitions the film and Ingo as producer received were an Academy Award nomination for best picture, the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and a Golden Globe for best picture musical or comedy. In addition, Lardner won the academy award for best adapted screenplay. Ingo is survived by his wife of 70 years, Kate, his daughter former Manhattan Surrogate Judge Eve Preminger, his daughter Kathy Kauff, a former attorney living in New York, and his son Jim, a literary agent in Los Angeles. He is also survived by eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren, the youngest named Ingo Abraham Solomon. In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Ingo can be made to the UCLA Division of Geriatrics, c/o Wendi Morner, 10945 Le Conte Avenue, Suite #3132, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1784.