Eliot Hyman

Eliot Hyman (1904–1980) was an American film executive who helped co-found Seven Arts Productions.

Biography

Hyman was a tire dealer who entered film production after World War II and became a distributor of films for television. In 1948, Hyman founded Associated Artists. In 1951, Hyman sold the company to David Baird's Lansing Foundation then to a newly started Motion Pictures for Television (MPTV), where Hyman served as a consultant. In July 1954, he and several partners launched another TV distribution company which used the Associated Artists name, Associated Artists Productions, which bought films from studios, notably Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, and re-sold them to television. He also began investing in such films as Moulin Rouge (1953) and Moby Dick (1956). Hyman later sold Associated Artists Productions to United Artists in 1958 and became president of United Artists Associated, for whom he bought the screen rights to several successful plays and musicals. In 1957, he helped found Seven Arts Productions and played an important role in the financing of the first horror film from Hammer Film Productions, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957).

In 1967, Seven Arts acquired Warner Bros. and the company became Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.

In 1969, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was sold to Kinney National Company which dropped the Seven Arts name. Hyman retired from the company and became a private investor.

His son was the film producer Kenneth Hyman.