Walter F. Wanger 1915

Mode of exit: Quit to work in the theater.

Career: Film producer

Most notable achievement: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

Quote: "I shot him because he broke up my home."

The theater was Wanger's passion when he was at Dartmouth; he is credited with taking the Dartmouth dramatic club and turning it into a semi-pro repertory company. But his grades did not reflect his talent. After being separated from the College his freshman year, he got himself readmitted, only to flee academic disaster as a senior.

After producing a play on Broadway, Wanger spent World War I as an army intelligence officer and served on President Woodrow Wilson's staff at the Paris Peace Conference. Returning to the states, he became a producer with Paramount, Columbia, and M-G-M. He immortalized Dartmouth with the film "Winter Carnival." Other credits include "The Cocoanuts," "Joan of Arc," "Invasion of the. Body Snatchers," and "Cleopatra." As president of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, he gave Baker Library the Irving G. Thalberg memorial script library, one of the most complete collections of early screenplays in the country.

During the early fifties Wanger achieved notoriety by shooting and wounding the agent of his second wife, actress Joan Bennett, in a fit of jealousy.

Wanger Hollywoodized us.