Second in a series
Re “Bill Wynn: He Is Once in a Lifetime”
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Bill Wynn and 5-year-old Rena, youngest of his three granddaughters.
He may be in his mid-70s, but hardy Bill Wynn seems to be hitting his stride in business – not running out the clock.
After spending nearly all of his working life around computer screens, this familiar has served him well in this phase of his career, marketing small, independent films to theatres in an era when mansions, rather than small, privately owned houses are the fashion.
The President of the Culver City Democratic Club works the internet to find films with appeal, and then, as the authentic prototype for Mr. Nice Guy, congenial, open-faced Mr. Wynn successfully plies the art of marketing.
“We are doing everything the majors do but with no money,” Mr. Wynn says. “We do it with grassroots marketing. We do a great deal with social media.”
His methodology comes naturally.
“I am an I. T. guy,” he says, using the familiar acronym for information technology.
A Quiet Observer
A lifetime seat-of-the-pants learner, his instinct is to observe and catalogue for future use.
How does he find out about new films?
“I worked at Fox Studios for 15 years. I was in I.T. and I was like a fly on the wall. I talked to Lots of people when I was there. The only person I didn’t talk to was Rupert Murdoch.”
Immensely collegial, agreeable, Mr. Wynn brings the passion, enthusiasm and curiosity that he first carried into the workplace a half-century ago.
What motivates or animates him?
“Discovering,” he quickly responds. “I am a discoverer. I like to discover Culver City. I used to come here to visit my mom. I used to be a newbie, but now I have lived here eight years, and I don’t know where the time has gone.”
At 17, in 1956, Mr. Wynn left home, joined the Marine Corps for a three-year hitch, and wound up in Los Angeles at the age of 20.
“I was trying to find my voice in this big metropolitan area” as the turbulent 1960s dawned.
Ultimately, his search led him into the computer world, then in its embryonic stage.
“I found a computer school in Los Angeles, and that is where I spent my next 30 years.”
Mr. Wynn was a natural tekkie, right?
“I was not,” he corrects. “I was anti-tekkie.” He had grown up in a non-technical era. “Now my (three) little granddaughters all work the computers.
“What helped make the transformation is that I always was a curious person. I adapted.”
(To be continued)
