One of the key figures in Hollywood’s 1970s reinvention died last week. Richard D Zanuck, son of Darryl F Zanuck, legendary head of 20th Century Fox, was responsible for producing such hits as Jaws and The Sting. He became the head of production at Fox in the mid 1960s and, in an eight-year tenure, oversaw the development of such huge pictures as The Sound of Music, The French Connection and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Steven Spielberg reminisced about his experiences making Jaws with Zanuck. “In 1974 Dick Zanuck and I sat in a boat off Martha’s Vineyard and watched the mechanical shark sink to the bottom of the sea. Dick turned to me and smiled. ‘Gee, I sure hope thats not a sign.’” It wasn’t. Zanuck was 77.