The Zanucks: Reel Royalty

Richard Zanuck Reflects On Hollywood, His Famous Dad And 'Charlie'

(CBS)  Though his career was on a roll, Zanuck’s personal life was not.

Zanuck had two marriages that didn’t quite succeed.

Then in 1978, he went on a blind date with Lili Fini, a 24-year-old manager at Carnation, the evaporated milk company, who had been living in Los Angeles just 6 months.

Lili describes it as love at first sight. She continues, “We were only dating four months when we got married, and we’ve had an incredible 27 years. We’ve had so much fun. We’ve accomplished wonderful things together.”

Some of those wonderful things are movies. Lili Zanuck started learning the business at her husband’s side. Then she became fascinated with a story about aliens and old people.

Obviously aliens and old people is a really hard pitch.

But she convinced her husband and David Brown to let her co-produce “Cocoon” with them. It was a surprise hit. Ron Howard was the director.

Howard says of the Zanucks: "They’re quite different people. Lili is kind of everyday, magazine-reading, kind of earthy, cut to the chase, basic sort of logic, extremely intelligent, but just very outspoken. Richard plays his cards a little bit more closely to the vest, but equally passionate about movies, ultimately as decisive. And you know together they’re quite dynamic."

After the success of "Cocoon," David Brown left the partnership and Lili and Richard founded the Zanuck Company.

The Zanucks went on to do "Driving Miss Daisy," a film that a lot of people didn’t want to make.

"Nobody wanted to make it, not a lot of people. Everybody, nobody wanted to make it," exclaims Richard Zanuck.

Even without aliens, "Driving Miss Daisy" was made, and won critical acclaim and the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Today, the Zanuck Company includes Richard’s two sons, Harrison and Dean, whom he and Lili raised. Zanuck's close relationship with his sons has led him to reflect on his struggles with his own father.

He explains, "One of my greatest regrets in retrospect is that I didn’t treat him as sensitively as I should have. No one on Earth do I owe more to than him. I never played ball with him. We never played catch. We never did things together but in the big things, when it really counted, he took great chances with me."

Zanuck did reconcile with his father before his death in 1979.

In contrast to his father, Zanuck describes himself as "a family man." In the office, the walls are adorned with posters from Zanuck family classics - and one that’s anticipated to become one.

That's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and Zanuck feels it may be bigger than all the other movies combined.

How would Zanuck describe these films? He says, "I like to make entertaining pictures but entertaining pictures that have even just a seed of something people benefit from — that aren’t mindless. Whether it’s 'The Verdict', whether it’s 'Driving Miss Daisy,' even 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' has a very strong family underpinning to it. It’s not just entertainment. That’s what I would like after my name: It’s not just entertainment."