Born in New York City, the second of five brothers; his parents were both Polish Jews from the village of Ulanow (Surname Wurtzel is a variant spelling of German and Yiddish wurzel, root in English). Wurtzel worked as an executive assistant to William Fox, founding owner of the Fox Film Corporation.
In 1911, Wurtzel hired Alan E. Freedman as a bookkeeper for Fox's fledgling film processing laboratory. Freedman would remain for over 50 years, eventually turning the operation into the gargantuan "Color by DeLuxe" DeLuxe Laboratories.
In 1917, Fox sent Wurtzel to California to oversee the studio's West Coast productions. Early in Wurtzel's career, he shepherded Fox's Hollywood studio through the Spanish Flu pandemic.[1] He developed a formula for creating consistently profitable B movies that are heralded today.
During his 34 year career at Fox and 20th Century Fox, Wurtzel supervised over 700 hundred films (many uncredited)[2] including a large number of the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Jones Family series as well as other successes such as Bright Eyes in 1934, starring Shirley Temple and featuring her enduring trademark song: "On the Good Ship Lollipop".
Wurtzel cast dancer Rita Hayworth (credited under her given name Rita Cansino) in her first film role, the 1935 production Dante's Inferno. He gave an unknown Marilyn Monroe her first walk-on in his 1947 production of Dangerous Years.
Wurtzel married Marian Bodner, who immigrated to New York from a small Polish shtetl, in 1912. They had two children Paul Wurtzel, who worked in his father's production company Sol M. Wurtzel Productions and went on to become a prolific assistant director for multiple television series,[3] and Lillian Wurtzel Semenov,[4] who compiled and edited a book of letters between her father and his boss William Fox.[5]
Ill for many years following a stroke in 1953, Wurtzel died at his home in Hollywood on April 9, 1958.[7]John Ford and Rabbi Max Nussbaum delivered eulogies at his funeral at Temple Israel of Hollywood attended by 400 mourners. Wurtzel was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
