Arthur P. Jacobs

Arthur P. Jacobs (7 March 1922, Los Angeles, California — 27 June 1973, Los Angeles) was an American film producer. He worked on the 20th Century Fox film Doctor Dolittle (1967), directed by Richard Fleischer, co-written by Hugh Lofting and Leslie Bricusse, and starring Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, and Anthony Newley, which earned Jacobs the Oscar nomination for "Best Picture." His APJAC Productions company created a prominent Planet of the Apes film franchise, starting with Franklin J. Schaffner's eponymous 1968 blockbuster. Two months after its debut, Arthur P. Jacobs and his assistant producer, Mort Abrahams, decided to serialize the project and hired Paul Dehn as the principal screenwriter. Jacobs further worked on Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (71) sequels, returning in 1973 for the fifth and final installment, Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Before his production career, Arthur P. Jacobs was a prolific publicist, running his Arthur P. Jacobs Company, Inc. firm that represented Judy Garland, David O. Selznick, Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson (2), Richard Burton (2), James Stewart (4), Gregory Peck (3), and many other notable Hollywood actors. Jacobs led a patently unhealthy lifestyle, a chain smoker, heavy drinker, and spontaneous eater; he never exercised and worked around the clock, joking that he was a "heart attack waiting to happen." Indeed, Arthur P. Jacobs died from a cardiac arrest at only fifty-one.