Ingo Preminger

Ingo Preminger is an Austrian-born American film producer and literary agent known for producing the influential satirical film MASH (1970) and for representing blacklisted screenwriters during the Hollywood blacklist era. His efforts helped sustain the careers of writers such as Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr., and he played a notable role in challenging the blacklist through Trumbo's credited screenplay for Exodus (1960).

Born Ingwald Preminger on February 25, 1911, in Czernowitz, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), he was raised in Vienna and earned a law degree from the University of Vienna. As a Jew facing persecution under the rising Nazi regime, he fled Austria in 1938 with his wife Kate Musil (whom he married in 1936) and young daughter, eventually reaching the United States with assistance from his older brother, director Otto Preminger. In New York, Preminger ran a paint-supply business for nine years before relocating to Los Angeles in 1947 to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.

Preminger initially joined a talent agency and soon established his own, representing literary clients including Leon Uris, Dalton Trumbo, and Ring Lardner Jr. He supported blacklisted writers by navigating the industry's restrictions, most prominently when his brother Otto hired Trumbo openly for Exodus, helping to erode the blacklist. Transitioning to film production, Preminger is best remembered for MASH, where he acquired the rights, sold them to 20th Century-Fox, and advocated for Robert Altman as director; the film became a critical and commercial success. He later produced The Salzburg Connection (1972) and The Great Smokey Roadblock (1976) before retiring in the late 1970s. Preminger died on June 7, 2006, in Pacific Palisades, California.