| Company type | Former subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Movie theaters |
| Founded | 1916  |
| Founders | A. J. Balaban Sam Katz |
| Headquarters | |
| Parent |
|
| Website | www.balabanandkatz.com (defunct) |
Balaban and Katz Theater Corporation, or B&K, was a theatre corporation which owned a chain of motion picture theaters in Chicago and surrounding areas.
Balaban and Katz Theatre corporation started in 1916 in Chicago by A. J. Balaban and his brother-in-law Sam Katz (1892-1961). [1]
It held its first meeting as a Delaware corporation on January 21, 1925. It merged with Lubliner and Trinz in July 1925. [2] Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, forerunner of Paramount Pictures, bought a controlling interest in Balaban and Katz Corporation in 1926. It became a part of United Paramount Theatres in 1948 after Paramount was forced to sell off its theaters.
The company also held at the Paramount Pictures-Theaters split in 1949: WBKB (TV), WIBK (FM), 25% of WSMB New Orleans, 50% of a company applying for an Atlanta AM license, 10% of another licensee apply for a license in Hot Springs, and television applications for Detroit, Boston, Tampa, and Des Moines. Balaban & Katz became a subsidiary of United Paramount Theatres, Inc. (UPT). [3]
UPT merged with American Broadcasting Company in 1953. The company tore down the Garrick Theater in 1960 and 1961 over the objections of Richard Nickel and other preservationists. [4] The company was officially dissolved as an Illinois corporation on July 31, 1970.
Balaban and Katz chose to build their theaters (many designed by famous architects Rapp and Rapp) in rapidly growing outlying districts, convenient for the middle class population which provided the bulk of their patrons, as well as in downtown Chicago. The company is notable for being the first to offer air conditioning in its theaters and for including lavish stage shows. Balaban and Katz operated over a hundred theaters in the midwestern United States. There were more than 50 Chicago-area theaters operated by the Balaban and Katz company including:
North: Belmont, [5] Century/Diversey Theatre, Cine, Covent, Granada, Howard, Lakeside, Northshore, Nortown, Pantheon, Riviera, [6] and Uptown. [7] [8] [9]
Northwest: Admiral, Alba, Belpark, Biltmore, Congress, Crystal, Drake, Gateway Theatre, Harding, Luna, Portage, Terminal, and Will Rogers.
South, Maryland, Regal, [10] Southtown, [11] Tivoli, [12] [13] [14] and Tower.
West: Central Park, Iris, Manor, Marbro, [15] Paradise, Senate, and State.
Loop: Apollo, Chicago, [16] [17] Garrick, Oriental, [18] Roosevelt, [19] and United Artists. [20]
Suburban Chicago: Berwyn, Coronet, La Grange, Park, Valencia (Evanston), and Varsity (Evanston).
Waukegan: Academy
Sam Katz, a vice president at Balaban and Katz, became president of The Publix theaters group, a division of Famous Players Lasky. Its secretary, Barney Balaban, eventually became president of Paramount Pictures. Beginning in 1939, Balaban and Katz, along with parent company Paramount, was involved in the early development of the television broadcasting industry. The company owned several experimental television licenses, and in 1943 began broadcasting over WBKB (now WBBM-TV), the first commercial television station in Chicago. [21]
Whenever Balaban and Katz decided that murals would become part of the interior design scheme, they would commission painter and muralist Louis Grell of Chicago to execute them. Grell painted murals inside the Chicago Theater, Gateway Theater, Uptown Theater and many Paramount Theaters across the midwest and America for Balaban and Katz.
The trademark for the company is owned by a historical foundation called the Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation. The foundation was founded by descendants of the original Balaban brothers. Its collection of B and K corporate documents is located in New Jersey. Theatre Historical Society, in Elmhurst, Illinois, maintains an extensive collection of architectural blueprints and large-format pictures of many Balaban and Katz theaters. In 2006, a documentary, Uptown: Portrait of a Palace , featured one of Balaban and Katz's most famous theaters, the Uptown. 2006 also saw the publication of a book on many of the B&K theatres, titled The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz, written by David Balaban with a foreword by theater historian Joseph DuciBella and published by Arcadia Publishing.
WBKB (TV) Chicago, licensed to the Paramount subsidiary Balaban & Katz, will go to a firm to be known as New Theatre Co.". New Theatre Co. would later be formally named as United Paramount Theatres[ permanent dead link ]
Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film and television production and distribution company and the namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States, and the sole member of the "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.
Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures. He produced one of America's first feature-length films, The Prisoner of Zenda, in 1913.
Uptown is one of Chicago's 77 community areas. Uptown's boundaries are Foster Avenue to the north; Lake Michigan to the east; Montrose Avenue, and Irving Park Road to the south; Ravenswood Avenue, and Clark Street to the west. To the north is Edgewater, to the west is Lincoln Square, and to the south is Lakeview. Near the lake are some of the northern reaches of Lincoln Park, including Montrose Beach and multiple nature reserves. The area has a mix of commercial and residential development, and includes a well-established entertainment district of clubs and concert venues, and was a center for early film making. Truman College, a two-year city college, is located here, and the area's southwest corner includes the historic 19th century Graceland Cemetery.
CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount (Network) Television, as a renaming of the original incarnation of the Paramount Television studio.
C. W. & George L. Rapp, commonly known as Rapp & Rapp, was an American architectural firm famed for the design of movie palaces and other theatres. Active from 1906 to 1965 and based in Chicago, the office designed over 400 theatres, including the Chicago Theatre (1921), Bismarck Hotel and Theatre (1926) and Oriental Theater (1926) in Chicago, the Five Flags Center (1910) in Dubuque, Iowa and the Paramount Theatres in New York City (1926) and Aurora, Illinois (1931).
Robert Elmer Balaban is an American actor, director, producer and writer. Aside from his acting career, Balaban has directed three feature films, in addition to numerous television episodes and films, and was one of the producers nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for Gosford Park (2001), in which he also appeared. He is also an author of children's novels.
Leonard H. Goldenson was the founder and president of the United States-based television network American Broadcasting Company (ABC), from 1953 to 1986. Goldenson, as CEO of United Paramount Theatres, acquired a then-struggling ABC from candy industrialist Edward J. Noble. Goldenson focused on investing heavily on sports and news coverage along with creating synergy between Hollywood studios and television networks. Goldenson turned ABC into a media conglomerate, owning television and radio stations along with newspapers and book publishers.
The Chicago Theatre, originally known as the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre, is a landmark theater located on North State Street in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the Chicago Theatre was the flagship for the Balaban and Katz (B&K) group of theaters run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Currently, Madison Square Garden, Inc. owns and operates the Chicago Theatre as a 3600 seat performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, sporting events and popular music concerts.
Uptown Theatre is a currently closed movie palace and concert venue located in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Designed by Rapp and Rapp and built by Paschen Bros. contractors, it is one of the many movie palaces built by the Balaban & Katz theatre chain run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban, and their partner Sam Katz.
The Paramount Theatre was a 3,664-seat movie palace located at 43rd Street and Broadway on Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Opened in 1926, it was a showcase theatre and the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures. Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount predecessor Famous Players Film Company, maintained an office in the building until his death in 1976. The Paramount Theatre eventually became a popular live performance venue. The theater was closed in 1964 and its space converted to office and retail use. The tower which housed it, known as the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, is in commercial use as an office building and is still home to Paramount Pictures offices.
Barney Balaban was an American film executive and innovator in the film industry who was president of Paramount Pictures from 1936 to 1964, and honorary chairman until his death.
Plitt Theatres was a major movie theater chain in the United States and went under a number of names, Publix Theaters Corporation, Paramount Publix Corporation, United Paramount Theatres, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres and ABC Theatres and operated a number of theater circuits under various names.
The Tivoli Theatre was a movie palace at 6323 South Cottage Grove Avenue, at East 63rd Street, in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago's South Side. It was the first of the "big three" movie palaces built by the Balaban & Katz theatre chain run by brothers A. J. Balaban, Barney Balaban and their partner Sam Katz, who were also owners of the Rivera Theater and the Central Park Theater, that opened on 16 February 1921.
The Copernicus Center is a 1,852-seat former movie palace that is now part of the Copernicus Center in the Jefferson Park community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The Copernicus Center is located at 5216 W. Lawrence Avenue.
ABC Owned Television Stations is a division of Disney Entertainment operated by Disney Networks Group that oversees the owned-and-operated stations of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), a division of The Walt Disney Company. The division also operates the Localish network.
Abraham Joseph Balaban, known as A. J. Balaban or Abe Balaban, was an American showman whose influence on popular entertainment in the early 20th century led to enormous innovations in the American movie-going experience.
American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, Inc. was the post-merger parent company of the American Broadcasting Company and United Paramount Theatres.
Louis Frederick Grell was an American figure composition and portrait artist based in the Tree Studio resident artist colony in Chicago, Illinois. He received his formal training in Europe from 1900 through 1915 and later became art professor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1922, and at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1922 to 1934. Grell exhibited his works throughout Europe from 1905 to 1915, in San Francisco in 1907, and in Chicago at the Art Institute 25 times from 1917 to 1941. He exhibited in New York in 1915 and 1916 and in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Primarily an allegorical and figurative composition muralist and portrait painter, his creative strokes adorn the ceilings and walls of numerous US National Historic Landmark buildings.
Henry G. Plitt was an American businessman and war hero who founded Plitt Theatres.
Elmer Balaban was an American theater owner and early cable television provider.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |