With a background in music promotion (Ted Weems, Paul Whiteman), public relations (one of his clients in Depression-era Chicago was Al Capone), journalism, and brokering communication properties (radio, newspaper, early television), Zugsmith became independently wealthy and began producing films at RKO during the Howard Hughes years.

Zugsmith's most significant credits are a string of four genre masterpieces produced in the late 1950s, all for Universal Pictures: the science-fiction classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, and the camp exploitation films (produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) High School Confidential and The Girl in the Kremlin.

[1] An archive of some of his shooting scripts and screenplays are housed in the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa.

[3] In 1947, Zugsmith represented Jerry Siegel (with whom he served in World War II) and Joe Shuster in their lawsuit against National Comics.

[4] Zugsmith formed American Pictures Corporation, along with Peter Miller, Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen.

While there he acted as a script doctor for several Universal-International films [8] and produced Female on the Beach (1955), a melodrama with Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler; The Square Jungle (1955), a boxing film with Tony Curtis; Raw Edge (1956), a Western with Yvonne de Carlo and Rory Calhoun; Red Sundown (1956), a Western with Calhoun, directed by Jack Arnold; and Star in the Dust (1956), another Western with John Agar and Mamie Van Doren, directed by Charles F.

[9] Zugsmith had a big hit with Written on the Wind (1956) starring Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Lauren Bacall and Dorothy Malone, directed by Douglas Sirk.

Zugmsith produced The Tattered Dress (1957) with Chandler, The Girl in the Kremlin (1957), and Slaughter on 10th Avenue (1957), a film noir.

He did The Tarnished Angels (1957) which reunited Sirk, Hudson, Stack and Malone, and Man in the Shadow (1957) with Chandler and Orson Welles, directed by Arnold.

Zugsmith says he left Universal because he was unhappy Edward Muhl had been made subservient to Al Daff[10] He moved to MGM, where he signed a six-picture deal.

"[13] Zugsmith turned director with The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) which he filmed with Rooney, who also starred; Van Doren was in the cast.

He then bought stock in Allied Artists and directed three films for that company: Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) with Van Doren and Tuesday Weld; Dondi (1961), a children's film with David Janssen and Patti Page; and Confessions of an Opium Eater (1963) with Vincent Price.