1873-1976
Extremely long lived studio founder and executive Adolph Zukor was born on this date in Ricse, Hungary during the rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was orphaned as quite a young age, so he became determined to immigrate to the United States as soon as he could find a way; he accomplished this in 1891 by way of Hamburg Germany. His name was recorded upon entry as Adolf Zuckery. He almost immediately found work in the New York City area--working in and apprenticing at various shops--especially upholstery factories and furriers. This gave him considerable experience in working with various fabrics, so he decided to go into business as a fur designer in Chicago in 1893 (Chicago, because of the World Colombian Exposition). This would grow to such an extent that he would become lavishly wealthy, allowing him to purchase very expensive real estate in New York City. It was in 1903 (a VERY early date!) that a cousin of his got him both interested and involved in the movie industry by way of a loan to expand a theater business. Though Zukor is remembered for being a founding member of Paramount, he actually founded the Famous Players Film Co. first (in 1912). The company was initially set up as an American distribution network for French films. For his trouble, he garnered his first film credit in 1912 on the Sarah Bernhardt film Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (English title: Queen Elizabeth) in 1912. In New York at this time, there was a bit of a clamor to get stage actors into motion pictures. Whole groups, businesses and partnerships sprung up around this endeavor. Zukor, ever the smart business man, placed himself in a good position to capitalize off this, without becoming directly embroiled in the "fad." He did this by borrowing monies that he probably didn't need to borrow at all from successful brothers that were part of the theater scene, with the goal of placing stage actors in a movie produced by Zukor's brand new "studio" (see the Frohman Brothers for more info.). The result was the production in 1913 of The Prisoner of Zenda, a film co-directed by "Edison man" Edwin S. Porter (he also got into the "presentation" business in 1913 with the short documentary Capt. Cherry Kearton's Wild Life). They did indeed bring in actors from the Broadway stage, most notably James K. Hackett, who made his motion picture debut in Zenda and only appeared in two other films in his lifetime (he was a consummate actor of the live stage first and foremost)--he was reportedly paid a whopping $1250 a week for his trouble! The longest lasting legacy of this endeavor was the opening of his Chelsea Studios, located in an existing building located on West 26th Street, an old armory Zukor purchased and converted. The studio is still in use today for television. As a producer (and a quiet one at that) his career stretched to 1938. Of course, his career was mostly as an executive; and in 1916, with the merging of Famous Players with Lasky, he also became a studio founder of significance. It was for intents and purposes the founding of Paramount as we know it today. The first film to be released under the merged entity for which Zukor had a hand in making was The Big Sister (September 1916), starring Mae Murray and Matty Roubert and directed by John O'Brien. Zukor was more than most involved with Paramount's early days as a powerhouse of nationwide film distribution. He was personally responsible for a wholesale purchase of theaters nationally, particularly in south--a market that had largely been ignored up to this point. From this effort, at least one business of film theater ownership grew out of Paramount (I don't think that it's too far fetched to say that Zukor is responsible for the moving over of the term "theater" from the actual live theater to film screening locations in popular vernacular); he was also insistent on having working studios on both coasts long after most studios had given up on the New York area as a location for motion picture production (I've featured a link to the Kaufman Astoria Studios here before--still in existence--it was a studio during the 1920's that he over saw the leasing of to other film companies). Zukor also enacted the practice of the film distributor charging the exhibitor an extraction fee of box-office receipts--a practice also still in use today. Zukor by the 1920's was making a large profit, both personally and for his companies, on both ends of the film production side--thus making him one of the people in the business who truly could be called a "presenter" in the purest sense of the word. In addition to all of this, in 1928 he became an early investor in radio, though he did not remain in the investment long. Some of the well known films that he produced/presented include: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1918), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Brewster's Millions (1921), Peter Pan (1924), The Vanishing American (1925), Beau Geste (1926), The Great Gatsby (1926), It (1927), Wings (1927), Manhattan Cocktail (1928), The Cocoanuts (1929), and The Virginian (1929) (just the tip of the iceberg!). In his late 50's by 1930, he already had an eye toward a semi-retired life. As mentioned above, he continued to provide production funds for films through most of that decade (the last of which was the Harold Lloyd film Professor Beware); his name on distribution posters continued up to the year 1941. The last film to have his name personally associated with it was New York Town and romantic comedy released in October and starring Fred MacMurray and Mary Martin. A dark stain in his life came with the Paramount debacle in the 1930's. The depression had taken all of Hollywood by surprise and most studios found themselves in quick financial straits--even the biggest names in business. Paramount was no exception. Zukor had made the most common mistake that business owners can make--over expansion and dilution of stock to finance it. It wasn't like other sectors were not also over leveraged, but any business involved in entertainment at the time was going to get hit hard and fast. People simply no longer had the "disposable capital" to spread around on things like going to see a movie--especially in the south. Paramount was for a time taken out of his hands and put into receivership, but amazingly Zukor was able to eventually regain control of the company's board and was instrumental in bringing the studio out of bankruptcy protection (though the theatrical distribution side of his business was gone for good). He then went on to divide his time between coast; he had already been in the habit of only spending part of the summer in Hollywood, preferring instead to keep to New York for most of the year. He did not fully retire until 1964 at the age of 91 (!), but he never gave up complete control of his chairmanships. NO one could accuse him of not working a day in his life! By the time of his death, he was spending more time in sunny/warmer California. When Zukor turned 100 years of age, the studio sold the candles from his cake off individually for charity. Remarkably, he would go on to have three more birthdays! He passed away on the 10th of June in 1976 at 103. He is interred back in his beloved New York at the Temple Israel Cemetery at Hastings-on-Hudson. Woth noting: one odd little film which actually featured a speaking appearance of Zukor in 1923 was Adolph Zukor Introduces Phonofilm, a 4 minute long film using the DeForest Phonofilm Sound System; Paramount was one of the first studios to take seriously methods to bring wide-spread sound to films.
