Sharon Rosen Leib

Sharon is the great-granddaughter of Sol M. Wurtzel, a pioneer 20th Century Fox movie producer who developed the talents of Shirley Temple, Rita Hayworth, John Ford, Tom Mix and many other luminaries and produced over 700 films during his 33-year tenure at Fox. By virtue of nepotism, dozens of Wurtzel family members worked on the Fox lot from 1917 through the 1980s. She's a freelance journalist and contributing writer for The Forward. Her Forward essay on the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures lack of meaningful representation of its Jewish founders went global and ultimately resulted in the Museum announcing a plan to feature a permanent exhibit called "Hollywoodland" that will foreground the founders and their backstories. Sharon is working on a narrative nonfiction book about American Jewish Hollywood history refracted through four generations of her family.