Poll, Martin

Martin Poll was a film producer born in New York City on November 24, 1922. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1943 with a bachelor’s degree in business, he served in the army before returning to work with his aunt Selma Tamber, a Broadway producer. Poll begun his film career in 1954 when he produced 39 episodes of the miniseries Flash Gordon in Europe. In 1956 Poll opened the Gold Medal Studios on East 175th Street in the Bronx, the former site of Biograph Studios, a silent movie studio. Gold Medal Studios become one of the largest movie studios outside of Hollywood, helping to revitalize film production in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1959 Poll was made Commissioner of Motion Picture Arts of the City of New York and is credited with being a large influence in the creation of the New York City Film Commission. In 1961 Poll sold his studios and moved to Hollywood to engage in production full time. He went on to create his own production company, Martin Poll Productions, and continued to produce movies in California, New York, and internationally for the rest of his life. Poll produced a total around a dozen feature films, including the 1968 Oscar-winning drama The Lion in Winter, and a number of television productions, including the 1978 CBS miniseries The Dain Curse . Later in his career Poll served on the Tisch School of the Arts Advisory Council from 1978 to 1984. He died on April 14, 2012, at the age of 89.

From the guide to the Martin Poll Papers, 1967-1984, (New York University Archives)