Harry Warner - Personal Life

Personal Life

On August 23, 1907, Warner married his girlfriend, Rea Levinson. It has been reported by family members that Harry dedicated a huge chunk of his life to make Rea happy. Together, the couple also had three children: Lewis (b. October 10, 1908), Doris (b. September 13, 1913), and Betty (b. May 4, 1920). Harry and his family were also very faithful to Jewish customs and traditions.

On April 5, 1931, Warner's son Lewis, whom he appointed as head of Warner Bros. Music, died when an infected, impacted wisdom tooth was extracted, which led to septicemia and then double pneumonia. Following Lewis' death, Warner, who was now left without a recognized heir to his empire- landed into an extreme state of depression. The following year, the Warners donated a theater in Lewis' honor to Worcester Academy, Lewis' alma mater.

Warner also felt his brother Sam's widow, actress Lina Basquette, was a tramp and not worthy of raising a child with the last name Warner. While Jack didn't mind that Lina was Catholic, Harry and the rest of the Warner family did. They refused to have any part in Lina's life, and did not acknowledge her as a member of the Warner clan.

In 1930, Basquette went broke and Warner decided to file for guardianship over Sam and Lina's daughter, Lita. On March 19, 1930, Warner and his wife Rea became the legal guardians of Lita through a 300,000.00 settlement in Lita's trust fund. Basquette was never financially able to take care of or regain custody of Lita and in 1931, she tried to commit suicide by poison. Following her suicide attempt, Basquette would only see her daughter on two occasions in the next twenty years. In 1947, Basquette filed for a large share of Sam's estate, which was by now worth $15,000,000.00 in stocks alone. Basquette claimed that the Warner brothers reorganized Sam's will under New York statues, while Sam died while living in the state of California, where, at the time of Sam's death in 1927, laws gave widows a larger share in their husband's wills. The lawsuit eventually ended when Basquette settled for a $100,000.00 trust fund from Harry's fortune.

Warner's daughter, Doris, was married to director Mervyn LeRoy on January 3, 1934. Because of their wedding, Warner, with no male heir to his studio after Lewis died, made LeRoy his new heir to the Warner Bros. studio. Together, the couple gave Harry two grandchildren, Warner Lewis LeRoy (b. 1936) and Linda LeRoy (b. 1939). On one occasion, in the late 1930s, Doris read a copy of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind and became interested making a film adaption of the book for the studio as well; Doris then offered Mitchell $50,000.00 for the book's screen rights. Uncle Jack, however, refused to allow the deal to take place, after seeing how expensive the film's budget would have been for the studio. The couple would later divorce on August 12, 1945, and Warner was left without an heir again. Two months after her divorce from LeRoy, Doris would marry director Charles Vidor. Together the couple had two sons, Brian and Quentin. The two remained married until Vidor's death in 1959.

In 1936, Betty Warner began an affair with one of Darryl F. Zanuck's assistants Milton Sperling. The two would marry on July 13, 1939. Through this marriage, the couple would also give Warner four more grandchildren, Susan (b. December 4, 1941), Karen (b. April 8, 1945), and Cass (b. March 8, 1948), and Matthew. The two remained married for twenty-four years.