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Award for "best color photography" for Gone With the Wind in 1939. It may have been his most distinguished accomplishment during his career, but he topped it this year, when his estate with wife Mary Jane was turned over to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, bestowing a $5 million gift in support of entertainment industry members.
According to her executor, Mary Jane Haller remembered her husband's love of his industry and gave the entire estate to MPTF in memory of him, as the couple had no children or living relatives at the time she was making her estate plans. She told her executor that she wanted her assets going to good use and so decided that giving everything to MPTF would enable her husband to give back to the industry that gave him such a rewarding life and career. She wanted to give to the charity that definitely takes care of its own.
A native Californian, Haller came to the old Biograph Studios as an actor in 1914. As a freelancer, Haller lost interest in acting and drifted towards cinematography. By 1920, he was full director of photography and spent the rest of the twenties manning the camera for films including Stella Dallas, The Dancer of Paris, and the early Frank Capra feature For the Love of Mike. Associated almost exclusively with prestige films in the 1930s, Haller ended the decade winning the Academy Award. He was nominated seven times during his career. He continued in his craft with pictures such as Mildred Pierce and Humoresque until he retired in 1964. Haller died in a car accident in 1970.
The Haller estate gift is remarkably large, but estate gifts of any size have a tremendous impact on the ability of MPTF to provide valuable services and charitable assistance to members of the entertainment industry. Whether it is a will, trust, bequest, life insurance policy, IRA or charitable gift annuity, your generosity is invaluable. Many people have minimal or no estate plans; no will or trust; or documents that have not been updated in years. MPTF is here to help you plan for your retirement and protect your estate in ways that will give you maximum tax benefits, additional income if needed, and the means to secure your family's future while creating a lasting legacy to support future generations in the industry.
For more information and/or a private consultation with one of our gift and estate professionals, please call the MPTF Foundation at 818-876-1900.
