Biography

Arthur Gardner

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Jules V. Levy, Arthur Gardner and Arnold Laven met in 1943 in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Force; they were stationed at the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, CA (with other notables such as Capt. Ronald Reagan, Capt. Clark Gable and Lt. William Holden, etc.), making training films. Levy, Gardner and Laven resolved that they would start their own independent motion picture company after they got out of the Air Force; all were discharged in 1945, but their company wasn't formed until 1951 (in the interim, Levy and Laven worked as script supervisors and Gardner as an assistant director and production manager). The first Levy-Gardner-Laven film was 1952's Without Warning! (1952); in the decades since, they have produced dozens of additional features and several TV series (including The Rifleman (1958), Law of the Plainsman (1959), The Detectives (1959) and The Big Valley (1965).
- IMDb mini biography by: Tom Weaver <TomWeavr@aol.com> (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)

He was the last surviving member of either the cast or the crew of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
Interviewed in Tom Weaver's book "Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes" (McFarland & Co., 2006).
Forms Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions with 'Jules V. Levy', and Arnold Laven
(1934-1945) Assistant producer, U.S. Air Forces 1st Motion Picture Unit
Born Arthur Goldberg, Gardner chose his surname from a side street near Fairfax. Having left Wisconsin for Hollywood with ambitions to become an actor, he saw his given name as an unlikely ticket to stardom.

[on the making of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)] He [Universal Pictures president Carl Laemmle] brought a man over from Germany who trained all of us in German military drills for two weeks on the back lot. That man was an early Nazi. I was a very happy-go-lucky kid, had a sense of humor--which thank God I still have--and played practical jokes. One day, I played one that he didn't appreciate and he lost his temper, and said, "Goldberg, you goddamn Jew, I warned you not to do that--you're fired". The man was an idiot. Lewis Milestone, the director, was Jewish. George Cukor, the dialogue director, was Jewish. They called him up and fired him on the spot and put me back on the picture. But from then on, I was not quite so playful.