Adolph Zukor
| Adolph Zukor | |
| Date of birth: | January 7 1873 |
| Birth location: | Ricse, Hungary |
|---|---|
| Date of death: | June 10 1976 (aged 103) |
| Death location: | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Academy Awards: | Academy Honorary Award 1949 Lifetime Achievement |
| Spouse: | Lottie Kaufman (1897-1956) |
Adolf Cukor (Adolph Zukor) (January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.
Adolph Zukor, the longtime head of Paramount Pictures during its heyday, was a key figure in the development of the powerful studio system that ran Hollywood from the late '20s through the '60s.
He was known as the "father of the feature film in America." From running penny arcades to creating Paramount Pictures Corporation, Zukor had a hand in the development of every aspect of the film industry. One of the very first studio moguls, Zukor realized that the three elements of the film business — production, distribution, and exhibition — were financially dependent on each other, and could be increased by opportunistic mergers.[1]
He worked at Paramount every day until his 100th birthday, and held the title of chairman emeritus until his death at the age of 103.
In 1948, Zukor was awarded a special Oscar for his contribution to the industry.
The Early Years
Adolph Zukor was born to a Jewish family in the rural village of Risce, Hungary. His parents ran a small store and grew crops. Zukor did not remember his father, who died when the boy was one year old and his brother Arthur was three. Their mother was the daughter of a rabbi. She remarried, but died when Zukor was eight.
The two brothers went to live with an uncle. They were sent to live with their uncle, Kalman Liebermann, a rabbi who hoped Adolph would follow in his footsteps. "I had the devil of a time persuading my uncle ... that I wasn't cut out for the theological calling," Zukor would later recall.[2]
Zukor was an unexceptional student. At the age of 12, he was apprenticed to a store owner for whom he swept, ran errands, and did chores. He attended night school twice a week. Zukor got paid nothing for his work, but received clothes and shoes from an orphans' fund. Learning of America from letters sent by immigrants, Zukor decided that he wanted to travel there. In 1888, he asked the orphans' fund for money to travel to America. He received enough for a steamship ticket and $40.
In 1889, at the age of 16, he emigrated to America. In New York City, Zukor found work as an apprentice in a fur shop for $4 a week. 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 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, commemorating Christopher Columbus' 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.
Over the years he saved several thousand dollars. Around age 21, he returned to Hungary for a visit and saw some of Europe. He married Lottie Kaufman, also a Hungarian immigrant, in 1897. The couple had two children, Mildred and Eugene. Zukor started a fur business with his wife's uncle, Morris Kohn.
Entertainment mogul
He and Kohn moved their company to New York in 1900. They got involved in running a penny arcade that featured phonographs and short movies as well as peep machines, a shooting gallery, punching bags, stationary bicycles, and candy. He built his penny arcade business, the nucleus of his cinema empire, with the money he had made from inventing a patent snap for furs.[3]
The business did very well, bringing in $500 to $700 a day. Zukor decided to get out of the fur business and devote all his time to the arcade. He worked closely with Marcus Loew at this time, becoming treasurer of his company.
A new medium, the movies were becoming popular, and Zukor decided to invest in a nickelodeon theater, "Hales' Tours of Kansas City." Initially, the idea was extremely popular, but the novelty wore off, and Zukor lost money on the venture. But for him, the loss was only a slight setback: he continued to open nickelodeon theaters with a fellow fur merchant, Marcus Loew.[4]
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 begun in Buffalo, New York with Edisonia Hall. The arcade salon 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.
Integrating the Business Loew and Zukor's company, Loew's Enterprises, adapted ordinary shops to serve as film exhibition halls. The makeshift theaters attracted audiences, but Zukor faced innumerable challenges in getting the exhibition rights to films. His frustrations led him to a single conclusion: he would have to produce films himself. He would soon pursue his vision of creating feature-length plays for the screen.
An Elite Premiere Zukor embarked on a partnership with Broadway producer Daniel Frohman, and together they secured the U.S. rights to show the French-produced film Queen Elizabeth, starring one of the day's biggest names, Sarah Bernhardt. The partners targeted a wealthier clientele than those who frequented the nickelodeons. Their investment paid off when New York society elites attended the premiere at the Lyceum Theater on July 12, 1912.
Famous Players
A handsome profit from the film's tour helped the partners launch their own production company, The Famous Players Film Company, in 1912. The company shot plays for the screen, In 1912, Adolph Zukor established Famous Players in Famous Plays as the American distribution company for the French film production Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt. 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 they created the Famous Players Film Company that produced The Prisoner of Zenda (1913).
This transformation began in 1912 when Zukor and his partners began to produce feature films including The Count of Monte Cristo starring James O'Neill, father of the famous playwright, The Prisoner of Zenda starring James Hackett, Queen Elizabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles starring Minnie Maddern Fiske. These early stars were drawn from the stage, but soon Zukor realized that he would have to create his own stars. He reached the ultimate early on with Mary Pickford, a Canadian-born vaudeville performer. We can best see "Little Mary's" rise to fame through her salary ascendancy: $1000 a week in 1914, $2000 per week in 1915, $10,000 per week in 1916; and a million dollars a year in 1917. Zukor willingly anted up such fabulous amounts because he knew the vast audiences Pickford drew at the box office.
Building the System W. W. Hodkinson, a forward-thinking businessman, established the Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1914 to act as a distributor for multiple film producers. Paramount advanced Frohman and Zukor production funding in exchange for a steady stream of films for distribution. Famous Players fell under Paramount's jurisdiction, along with another major producer, Jesse Lasky's Feature Play Company. In 1916 Famous Players merged with Lasky's business to become Famous Players-Lasky Corporation with Zukor president, Lasky vice president, Samuel Goldwyn chairman and Cecil B. DeMille director-general.
Meanwhile, on the distribution side, theater owners consolidated their holdings by creating theater chains. Zukor kept a hand in both sides of the business. His company invested in the chains, which empowered him to present his own films in the theaters, and he purchased stock in Paramount to protect his interests.
Consolidation Zukor seized the momentum from profit-bearing mergers and proposed to Paramount's board that Famous Players-Lasky join Paramount to form an even stronger entity. His idea fell on receptive ears, and he became the new president of the conglomeration, which was now a subsidiary of Famous Players-Lasky. In the 1920s the company dropped the name Famous Players-Lasky and became Paramount Pictures.
By 1921 Zukor had turned his Paramount company into the most powerful and most profitable film making and distribution company in the world. Three hundred plus theaters in 1921. By 1925 he had the largest theatre chain.
In the spring of 1927, second-year Harvard Business School students were required to attend a lecture series featuring Adolph Zukor, William Fox, Marcus Loew, Harry Warner, Cecil B. DeMille, and other powerful heads of film studios such as Paramount, Fox, and MGM. The studio chiefs were men from immigrant, working-class roots who were making millions on 25-cent picture shows, and Harvard had never seen their like before. Brokered by Joseph Kennedy, the lecture series was the first university-sponsored event of its kind.[5]
“When I entered this business 20 years ago, men from college despised motion pictures,” Adolph Zukor said to start his address. “To work for such a company was far beneath them. But within the last few years, they have seen the tremendous future [in] motion pictures … The future of the motion picture industry will depend on college men.”
Pickford contract
One of Zukor's shrewdest decisions was to offer an up-and-coming actress, Mary Pickford, a contract. The combination of her popularity and his business acumen increased their collective influence. Zukor endured endless salary negotiations with Pickford and her mother, Charlotte, during the years of their collaboration. Zukor remembered Pickford saying, "You know, for years I've dreamed of making $20,000 a year before I was 20, and I'll be 20 very soon." "I could take a hint," he recalled. "She got the $20,000, and before long I was paying her $100,000 a year. Mary was a terrific businessman," Zukor reminisced.[6]
Final years
Paramount-Publix went bankrupt in 1933, and was reorganized as Paramount Pictures, Inc. He was forced out as part of the reorganization, but after Barney Balaban became Paramount president in 1936, he appointed Zukor chairman of the board. In return, Zukor always called Balaban "the boy." They served together 28 years, until Balaban was forced out of Paramount in 1964 after the failure of the big-budgeted The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).[7]
Zukor was also an accomplished 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.
1912 Left Loew's to form Engadine Corporation to show the feature-length French film "Queen Elizabeth"
1912 Formed "Famous Players (in Famous Plays)" production and distribution company
1904 Opened a movie theater in New York
1903 Joined Marcus Loew in penny arcade business; set up arcades along northeast corridor
Final years
Temple Israel Cemetery Hastings-on-Hudson Westchester County New York,
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Zukor, Adolph, The Public Is Never Wrong: My 50 Years in the Picture Industry (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1953)
- Balaban, David. "The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz," Arcadia Publishing, 2006.
External links
- American Experience
- Krebs, Albin.Obituary, NY Times, June 11, 1976 Adolph Zukor Is Dead at 103; Built Paramount Movie Empire. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
- Adolph Zukor. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
- Theatre Historical Society of America. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
- Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation Official Website of Balaban and Katz. Photos of Balaban and Katz Theatres and corporate information. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
- [8]
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