Adolph Zukor
| Adolph Zukor | |
|---|---|
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| Born | January 7, 1873 Ricse, Hungary |
| Died | June 10, 1976 (aged 103) Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Years active | 1912–1959 |
| Spouse | Lottie Kaufman (1897–1956) |
Adolph Zukor (January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976),[1] born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.[2]
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[edit] Early life
Zukor was born to a Jewish family in Ricse, Hungary, which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1889, at the age of 16, he emigrated to the United States. Like most immigrants, he began modestly. When he first landed in New York, he stayed with his family and worked in an upholstery shop. A friend got him a job as an apprentice at a furrier.
Zukor stayed there for two years. When he left to become a "contract" worker, sewing fur pieces and selling them himself, he was nineteen years old and an accomplished designer. But he was young and adventuresome, and the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, commemorating Columbus's discovery of America, drew him to the Midwest. Once there, he started a fur business. In the second season of operation, Zukor's Novelty Fur Company expanded to twenty-five men and opened a branch.[3]
Historian Neal Gabler wrote "one of the stubborn fallacies of movie history is that the men who created the film industry were all impoverished young vulgarians.... Zukor clearly didn't fit this profile. By 1903, he already looked and lived like a wealthy young burgher, and he certainly earned the income of one. He had a commodious apartment at 111th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City's wealthy German-Jewish section".[4]
In 1918, he moved to New City, Rockland County, New York, where he purchased three hundred acres of land from Lawrence Abraham, heir to the A&S Department Stores. Abraham had already built a sizable house, a nine-hole golf course and a swimming pool on this property. Two years later, Zukor bought an additional five hundred acres, built a night house, guest house, movie theater, locker room, greenhouses, garages, staff quarters and hired famed golf architect A.W. Tillinghast to build an eighteen hole championship golf course. Today, Zukor's estate is a private country club known as Paramount Country Club.[5]
[edit] Early movie career
He became involved in the motion picture industry when in 1903 his cousin, Max Goldstein approached him for a loan. Mitchell Mark needed investors in order to expand his chain of similar theaters that had begun in Buffalo, New York with Edisonia Hall. The arcade salon, the Automatic Vaudeville Company on 14th Street in New York City was to feature Thomas Edison's marvels: phonographs, electric lights and moving pictures. Zukor not only gave Goldstein the money but insisted on forming a partnership to open another one. Another partner in the venture was Marcus Loew.
[edit] Famous players
In 1912, Adolph Zukor established Famous Players Film Company -- advertising "Famous Players in Famous Plays" -- as the American distribution company for the French film production Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt.[6] The following year he obtained the financial backing of the Frohman brothers, the powerful New York City theatre impresarios. Their primary goal was to bring noted stage actors to the screen and Zukor went on to produce The Prisoner of Zenda (1913). He purchased an armoury on 26th Street in Manhattan and converted it into Chelsea Studios, a movie studio that is still used today.[7]
[edit] Paramount Pictures
The studio evolved into Famous Players-Lasky with co-producer Jesse L. Lasky and then Paramount Pictures, of which he served as president until 1936 when he was elevated to chairman of the board. He revolutionized the film industry by organizing production, distribution, and exhibition within a single company. Zukor was a director and producer. He retired from Paramount Pictures in 1959 and thereafter assumed Chairman Emeritus status, a position he held up until his death at the age of 103 in Los Angeles.
[edit] Further reading
- Adolph Zukor, The Public Is Never Wrong: My 50 Years in the Picture Industry (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1953)
- David Balaban, The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz (Arcadia Publishing, 2006)
- Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York: Anchor Books, 1989)
- Will Irwin, The House That Shadows Built (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1928)
[edit] References
- ^ Bernstein, Matthew (February 2000). "Zukor, Adolph". American National Biography Online. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Obituary Variety (June 16, 1976) page 76.
- ^ Gabler, Neal (1988). An empire of their own : how the Jews invented Hollywood (1st ed. ed.). New York: Crown Publishers. pp. 16. ISBN 051756808X.
- ^ Gabler, Neal (1988). An empire of their own : how the Jews invented Hollywood (1st ed. ed.). New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 051756808X.
- ^ Trager, James (1979). The people's chronology: a year-by-year record of human events from prehistory to the present. Austin, Texas, United States: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 823.
- ^ Wu, Tim, The Master Switch : The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. ISBN 9780307269935. Cf. especially p.62 on the film and Sarah Bernhardt. Sections of the book are on the film industry's early days and the then independent film studios such as Paramount.
- ^ New York: The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York - Richard Alleman - Broadway (February 1, 2005) ISBN 0-7679-1634-4
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[edit] External links
- 1873 births
- 1976 deaths
- People from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County
- Hungarian Jews
- Academy Honorary Award recipients
- American entertainment industry businesspeople
- American centenarians
- American film studio executives
- American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
- Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
