Woolf senior was a major figure at Gaumont British and established General Film Distributors in 1937.
John and James were educated at Eton, while the older brother also attended Institut Montana, Switzerland.
[3] John was the sales manager of General Film Distributors until it was taken over by the Rank Organisation[4] James worked for Columbia Pictures in the Hollywood publicity department.
According to critic Ronald Bergan in his obituary of Sir John Woolf: "Their aims were ambitious: to produce artistically valuable and yet commercially viable films, whose subjects would be wider than the Little Englanderism of British pictures of the period, and featuring big stars.
They made several films with producer Daniel Angel and helped turn Laurence Harvey, whom they had under contract, into a star.
In the mid '50s they formed a partnership with Korda, helping him to finance his films, including Richard III (1955).
Shortly afterwards he was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel when he failed to keep a dinner arrangement with director Lewis Gilbert about making a film version of the musical Oliver!.
A hotel employee found him dead, sitting up in bed with an open book on his lap; the cause was reported to be a heart attack.
John Woolf remembered The Fallen Idol (1948), which suggested to him that its director, Sir Carol Reed, had the requisite skills to work with children.
In 1999, the year of his death, John Woolf was estimated to be worth £40 million, through a combination of his films and shrewd investments.
[19] In 2013, Romulus Films, Ltd. changed directions from film production to regenerative medicine, being involved in a $5 million stock and warrant purchase funding arrangement with BioTime Inc. [20] In April 2021, Romulus signed a worldwide distribution deal with StudioCanal (which was owned by Vivendi's Canal+ Group from 2021 to 2024 and is owned by Canal+ from 2024 onwards).
He was an obsessional filmmaker, loving the wheeling and dealing, relishing the juggling with human talents that it involved, and taking pleasure in spotting youthful proteges and promoting their careers, thereby gaining a vicarious satisfaction from their success that was lacking in his own basically lonely nature.
He had a quick mind that panned and found the nuggets before other prospectors on the trail had even arrived at the mine... Jimmy was a shield, quite fearless when tackling the front offices.