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
Achtung ... Blondinen-Gangster (1952); in the
decades since, they have produced dozens of additional features and
several TV series (including
Westlich von Santa Fe (1958),
Law of the Plainsman (1959),
Kein Fall für FBI (1959) and
Big Valley (1965).
