Boxoffice-Febuary.28.1953

1
kBOXOFFICE :: February 28, 1953 27
1903-1953
^DOLPH
/ UKOR
50TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY
A MAN OF VISION AND COURAGE
By J. M, JERAULD
men liked to decorate their women to show
Adolph Zukor. at 80. has the same talent
how prosperous they were.
for looking ahead, the same willingness to
Zukor arrived in Chicago with ambition,
try new things, the same eager, competitive
but not much capital, and got another fur
spirit that made him face the complexities
cutting job. This time he and Max Schlosberg
took scraps and worked them into neck-
of America as when he landed at the Battery
in 1888 at 16 with $40 sewed in his coat.
pieces after hours. Soon they formed the
The only difference now i.s that he has
Novelty Fur Co. and business rolled in.
perspective, gained in four climb.s to financial
heights with precipitou.s decline.s on the
ing one of these, Zukor went to the Columbia
The fur business has its off seasons. Dur-
other side of the peaks, and a talent for
Exposition and saw Edison's Kinetoscope—the
forgetting old adversities while he faces new
coin-in-the-slot machine that first showed
problems.
motion pictures in this country. He was
Pew men his age have this incurable
fascinated. He didn't realize it at the time,
optimi.sm.
but a subtle change in his thinking set in.
In 1905. at 33, he could have retired with
He returned to the show again and again.
assets of $200,000 earned in the fur bu.siness;
in 1912 he risked the entire fortune to put
"Queen Elizabeth" on American screens; in
1913 he had $200,000 in negatives waiting
for relea.se and Mi-s. Zukor offered to sell
her jewels to meet the payroll. Six years
later, when World War I ended in 1919, he
was the head of a tremendously prosperous
film company.
Twenty-four years later, in 1933. he saw
the Paramount empire go into receivership.
Now, after another 20 years, he eagerly
watches third-dimension start an industry
revolution similar to that of sound in 1927,
and gently reminds his associates that Paramount
has a third-dimension camera he
bought 25 years ago.
Has he ever thought of retiring? Ask him
and watch the look of startled surprise on
his mobile features.
No situation can possibly arise in the pic-
BIG FURRIER
Inventor of Fur Piece at 21
ADOLPH ZUKOR
An Errand Boy at 18
ture business that he hasn't encountered before
and he wants to be on hand to help
solve problems as they come.
He has been a boxer, a baseball player, a
tennis player and golfer, and he can set a
pace as a walker that makes some younger
men gasp. In his younger days he became
deeply interested in acting techniques, but
he never was an extrovert and stayed on the
sidelines as an observer.
Like most boys of 16, Zukor's first aim after
putting on his Sunday suit at the home of a
distant relative in New York was to get a
job. He went to work for an upholsterer at
$2 per week, but the work was too heavy and
he switched to an errand boy's job at $4 per
week in a fur shop. Three years later he
had added to his income by going out for the
lunches of fellow workers and was earning
$8 per week as a journeyman fur worker.
His dreams of carving out a fortune in
the Land of Promise were as bright as ever,
but at that salary his chances for saving
money were slim. So he invented a neckpiece
that could be made of fur scraps, with a
tail and a head with two beady eyes and a
clasp.
It was a stroke of genius. Women are still
wearing them 61 years later.
Zukor decided New York was not his
oyster. The country was warming up to
preparations for the Columbia Exposition at
Chicago scheduled for 1893. Chicago began
as a fur trading post. It was the Far West,
a land of adventure, as far as Zukor was
concerned. So he went west.
Perhaps his new neckpiece idea would tal»e
on in the wild and woolly regions where
Three more years went by. The popularity
of the neckpieces waned as general business
fell off. The fur company was in a bad way
in 1896. Schlosberg sold out to Zukor and
he took on a new partner, Morris Kohn.
Together they salvaged the firm and paid its
debts.
In the meantime—1894, to be exact—Edison
began general distribution of his Kinetoscopes.
The following year penny arcades began
popping. They had Kinetoscopes on one side
and Edison phonographs on the other.
Mitchell Mark of Buffalo added all the
penny-in-the-slot devices he could find, including
punching bags, weight machines and
an effigy of a Gypsy that told fortunes on
printed cards.
Mark was the man who later expanded
eastward to 125th street, New York, and
built the first de luxe film theatre, the
Strand, on Broadway. His path merged with
Zukor's.
Seeds of the coming revolution in entertainment
were germinating. In France, Lumiere
PROSPEROUS PRODUCER
Paces Industry at 45