Sam Lomberg

Sam Lomberg was born [1920, ed] and raised in London in an area fondly known as Fitzrovia. A cosmopolitan area populated by many well-known artists, actors and musicians. His father was a costume designer consequently right from his childhood he was surrounded by film and theatre folk, so it is no wonder that Sam loved both films and the theatre and that from a very early age he became interested in acting. He was particularly fond of Shakespeare and joined an amateur dramatic society. At the age of twelve he participated in a Shakespearian Festival playing the part of Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Later, Sam applied for a job with MGM and got it. At that time (1936) MGM was the largest and most important film company in the world. Sam started his career in the studio publicity department. He was later transferred to sales where he remained until war broke out in 1939. After 6½ years in the RAF, Sam returned to MGM and after a brief training period became manager of the London office. In 1949 he was “head-hunted” by Columbia Pictures where he held various executive positions and finally became head of Screen Gems, Columbia’s TV subsidiary. In 1959 he accepted an offer to join NTA as their Director of Foreign Sales. It was while he was with NTA that he became involved with Cinemiracle and the road showing of “Windjammer”. Although he had spent more time on sales and distribution than on production, Sam’s main interest had always been production. Purely by coincidence he met Henning Karmark, head of ASA Films in Denmark, at a cocktail party in London. This meeting resulted in Henning Karmark asking Sam to join ASA who wanted to get into international production instead of producing films solely for the Danish market.