Frank Ross, 85; Produced ‘Robe,’ ‘Mice and Men’

Film producer Frank Ross, whose movies included the epic CinemaScope feature “The Robe” and the adaptation of the classic John Steinbeck novel “Of Mice and Men,” has died from complications after brain surgery, a spokesman said Tuesday. He was 85.

Ross, whose former wives included actresses Jean Arthur and Joan Caulfield, died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized for nearly two months, publicist Joe Hoenig said.

A Boston native and a graduate of Princeton University, Ross began his career as an actor in 1929 with such stars as Clara Bow and Arthur.

But he soon abandoned acting for production at the old Hal Roach Studios, where he was an associate producer under Lewis Milestone on “Of Mice and Men” in 1939.

Ross received a special Academy Award in 1945 for “The House I Live In,” a short subject on intolerance, which featured Frank Sinatra.

His other pictures included “The Devil and Miss Jones,” “The Flame and the Arrow,” “Demetrius and the Gladiators,” “The Rains of Ranchipur,” “The Lady Takes a Chance,” “Kings Go Forth,” “Mister Moses” and “Where It’s At.”

His production of “The Robe,” the 1953 Bible epic starring Richard Burton, was the first feature made in CinemaScope, an early wide-screen process. He had secured the rights to the Lloyd C. Douglas novel about 10 years earlier.

He and Arthur married in 1932 and divorced in 1939. He married Caulfield in 1950; they divorced in 1959. Ross later was briefly married to Joan Bradshaw.

He is survived by a brother and a son from his marriage to Caulfield.