Jack Fier was the tough, efficient head of low-budget film production at Columbia, and he seldom got his name on the screen.
Hollywood columnist and biographer Bob Thomas described him as "the aggressive little production manager Jack Fier, a relentless man with a galvanic voice.
Fier was soon placed in charge of the studio's new serial unit, and was responsible for three hit chapter plays: The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Spider's Web, and Mandrake the Magician.
Fier flatly refused, explaining that the weekend overtime rates stipulated by the painters' union would be much too expensive.
Fier settled the problem quickly by paying the demand, but charged the amount to Orson Welles personally.