Irene Heymann on Paul Kohner and the European Film Fund (interview excerpt)
Irene Heymann on Paul Kohner and the European Film Fund (interview excerpt)
[…] natürlich wollte Louis B. Mayer nicht zurückstehen und hat gesagt dann nimmt er acht, wenn Warner sechs nimmt und als Harry Cohn das hörte hat er gesagt, er nimmt zehn. Denn jeder musste doch den anderen übertreffen. Und auf die Weise hat er [Paul Kohner] eine Menge von den europäischen Schriftstellern untergebracht.
[[…] of course Louis B. Mayer did not want to be outdone and said he would take eight if Warner took six, and upon hearing this Harry Cohn said he would take ten. Because they each had to outdo the others. And in this way he [Paul Kohner] managed to accommodate many of the European writers. (ed. trans.)]
Irene Heymann on Paul Kohner
In 1938 the agent Paul Kohner, described by his long-time secretary Irene Heymann as a man with a big heart, founded the European Film Fund along with various German filmmakers already established in Hollywood, including Ernst Lubitsch, William (Wilhelm) Dieterle, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder.
Heymann recalled in an interview that, in the early days, Kohner forced his clients to donate part of their fee to the charity - later this levy became common practice. The money that was collected was used to support unemployed and destitute emigrants in the form of loans or donations.
Paul Kohner also managed to arrange temporary employment contracts for writers with the major film companies Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. and Columbia, which allowed them to obtain a visa and enter the United States. Evidently the bosses of the studios sought to outdo each other in these charitable acts, with each wanting to award more contracts than the last, as Heymann recounts.
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