John Beck

October 24, 1909 — Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

John Beck was the American producer who facilitated the production of the original King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), which he released in a heavily edited form in the United States in 1963 as King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963). Beck's other claims to fame are producing the 1950 James Stewart film Harvey and his involvement in the 1946 merger between Universal Pictures and International Pictures. Stop-motion animator Willis O'Brien had contacted Beck with a film treatment for King Kong vs. Frankenstein, which they made a handshake deal to work on. Beck recruited sci-fi screenwriter George Worthing Yates to write the script which became King Kong vs. Prometheus. After failing to pitched it to several American studios, Beck did not further contact with O'Brien. Instead he found a buyer in Japan, Toho, who substituted Godzilla for Frankenstein and started from scratch. Beck, having secured the rights to the film in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Israel, sold them to Universal for $200,000. He also produced the English-language version of the film, which was extensively recut and featured new scenes in a United Nations newsroom directed by Thomas Montgomery. After learning of King Kong vs. Godzilla, O'Brien contemplated suing Beck but he didn't have enough money and passed away shortly thereafter. Beck himself died of cancer at the age of 83 on July 18, 1993.