Edward Small

Edward Small (born Edward Schmalheiser, February 1, 1891, Brooklyn, New York – January 25, 1977, Los Angeles, California) was a film producer from the late 1920s through 1970, who was enormously prolific over a fifty-year career. He is best known for the movies The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), The Corsican Brothers (1941), Brewster's Millions (1945), Raw Deal (1948), Black Magic (1949), Witness for the Prosecution (1958) and Solomon and Sheba (1959).

Small was the son of Jewish Austrian-born Philip Schmalheiser and Prussian-born Rose Lewin, and had three sisters and two brothers. He began his career as a talent agent in New York City. In 1917, he moved his agency to Los Angeles. Among his acting clients was a young Hedda Hopper. In the 1920s the Edward Small Company produced stage sketches. He helped William Goetz get his start in the industry by recommending him for a job at Corinne Griffith.

Small began producing films in the 1920s, when it became his full-time occupation. He formed the firm Asher, Small and Rogers, where he was a partner with Charles Rogers and E.M Asher.

"Picture making is a youngster's game," he said in 1926. "When a man gets older he doesn't want to take a chance to try something new. And this business moves so fast that if you don't change your methods with every picture you're out of luck. In a few years I won't have a thing to do with the creative Afraid, I'll hire young men with plenty of nerve to handle that for me."

He had much early success producing comedies. "Making a comedy requires far more care than is necessary for any other form of screen production because audiences are more exacting than in any other form of entertainment."

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