Maxwell Arnow

Maxwell Arnow (born February 25, 1902 in New York City – died June 6, 1984 in Beverly Hills) was an American Casting director. He was noted for his discoveries of future film stars Ronald Reagan and Kim Novak.

Maxwell Arnow was born in New York City on November 25, 1902, the son of Jacob and Pauline Cohen Arnowitz. He married Henrietta Schnall in 1929 in New York. In 1932, he moved his family to California and was hired by Warner Bros., becoming one of the youngest casting directors in Hollywood at the time. While at Warner, he auditioned an Illinois sportscaster named Dutch Reagan. After offering him a contract, Max insisted that Dutch use his given first name Ronald.

After leaving Warner Bros. in 1938, he worked for David O. Selznick and was the casting director for Gone with the Wind and other films. Arnow took also an important role in the famous "Searching for Scarlett" in the casting of Gone with the Wind. He joined Columbia Pictures in 1942 and remained there until 1956. Then he joined a new company formed by Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster. He developed diabetes in his later years which cost him his eyesight. Maxwell Arnow is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.

Aside from the two mentioned above, other film stars he worked with included Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins, Helen Hayes, Ruth Chatterton, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart (who wouldn't change his first name), Jack Lemmon, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Robert Vaughn and Tab Hunter.

Literature

• Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. 1999
• Reagan, Ronald. Where's the Rest of Me? 1965

External links

• Maxwell Arnow at the Internet Movie Database