Adolph Zukor

Notable work and positions

Paramount Pictures - Founder; President (1916-1935); Chairman of the Board (1935-1959); Chairman Emeritus (1959-1976)
Famous Players Film Company - Founder (1912)
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation - President (1916)

Biography

Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian-American film producer and executive who built Paramount Pictures into one of Hollywood's dominant studios. Born in Ricse, Hungary, on January 7, 1873, he was orphaned young and raised by an uncle, a rabbi. He immigrated to the United States around 1888 and worked in the fur trade in New York and Chicago before investing in penny arcades and nickelodeon theaters in the early 1900s with fellow furrier Marcus Loew. In 1912 he founded the Famous Players Film Company, built around the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays," and produced The Prisoner of Zenda (1913), one of America's first feature-length films. In 1916 Zukor merged his company with Jesse L. Lasky's Feature Play Company to form Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which absorbed the Paramount Pictures Corporation as its distribution arm; by the late 1920s the combined operation had taken the Paramount name. Zukor pioneered the practice of block booking and built the Publix Theatres chain of nearly 2,000 screens, giving Paramount control across production, distribution and exhibition. He guided the company through a 1933 bankruptcy reorganization during the Great Depression, later becoming chairman of the board in 1935. He retired from active management in 1959 and held the title of chairman emeritus until his death in Los Angeles on June 10, 1976, at age 103. In 1949 he received an honorary Academy Award recognizing him as "a man who has been called the father of the feature film in America." His autobiography, The Public Is Never Wrong, was published in 1953.

Career highlights

• The Prisoner of Zenda 1913 · One of the first American feature-length films, produced through his Famous Players Film Company.
• Famous Players-Lasky merger 1916 · Combined his company with Jesse L. Lasky's studio, forming the corporate foundation of what became Paramount Pictures.
• Honorary Academy Award 1949 · Recognized for his pioneering contributions to the American feature film industry.