Jack Warner Jr.; Film Producer, Son of Studio Co-Founder

Jack Warner Jr., son of legendary Warner Bros. studio co-founder Jack L. Warner, has died, it was learned Sunday. He was 79.

Warner died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was admitted Friday with cancer of the lymph nodes, said Henry Richman, his brother-in-law.

Warner was diagnosed as having the disease 13 months ago.

“This is kind of like the end of a dynasty,” Richman said.

A 1938 cum laude graduate of USC, Warner became a producer and director at Warner Bros. studios, serving in various executive positions until 1958, when he was fired by his father.

The son learned he was out of a job by reading it in the trade newspapers. The two had a falling out after the elder Warner divorced his first wife, Irma--Jack Jr.’s mother--and married his second wife, Ann.

Both Jack Jr. and his mother were omitted from Jack L. Warner’s 1964 autobiography, “My First Hundred Years in Hollywood.”

While still working at the studio founded by his father and uncles, Warner produced the 1949 film “The Hasty Heart,” starring Ronald Reagan. In 1950, he produced “The Man Who Cheated Himself,” starring Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt.

In 1959, a year after he was fired from his father’s studio, Warner formed his own independent production company.

Warner had always enjoyed writing and in 1982, after he retired, he wrote “Bijou Dream,” a fictional account of a movie family bearing similarities to the Warners. Another novel, “The Dream Factory,” followed in 1987.

Warner also was a regular writer of letters to the editor at The Times. His most recent missive, just 18 words long, appeared two months ago. It said: “Speaker Newt Gingrich reminds us that the one thing worse than a sore loser is a sore winner.”

Besides his brother-in-law, Warner is survived by his wife of 47 years, the former Barbara Richman; two daughters, Betsy and Debbie Warner, both of Los Angeles; a grandson, Richard Warner Rasmussen of Los Angeles; and his half sister, Barbara Warner Howard of New York.

Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. today at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City.