Sam was born to a Jewish family; his father Abe Katzman was a violinist. He and Sam's mother Rebecca (née Sugarman) were from Chisinäu. Sam Katzman was a production supervisor at Showmen's Pictures in the early 1930s, and Screencraft Pro- ductions in July 1935. His movies included His Private Secretary (Showmen's, 1933) starring a young John Wayne (made for $9,000 and earned $95,000). They also made Police Call (1933), Ship of Wanted Men (1933), Public Stenographer (1933), and St. Louis Woman (1934). Katzman accepted an offer tomove his operation to MGM in 1963. He started with a low budget musical Hootenanny Hoot (1963), which led to several more mu- sicals: Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) and When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965) (a remake of Girl Crazy). MGM also financed three of Katzman's best known movies: two films starring Elvis Presley, Kissin' Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965), as wel as Your Cheatin' Heart (1964), a biopic of Hank Williams starring George Hamilton. Hamilton later wrote in his memoirs that "Jungle Sam cracked the whip, whacked the cane and the whole film was in the can right on time. But he gave me free rein cre- atively and our director... brought in something memorable, and even Sam knew it" In December 1964 Katzman announced he would make five films that year for MGM in his third year at the studio.