Carl Laemmle | |
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Born | Karl Lämmle January 17, 1867 Laupheim, Kingdom of Württemberg (now Germany) |
Died | September 24, 1939 72) Los Angeles, California, U.S. | (aged
Resting place | Home of Peace Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Years active | 1909–1939 |
Spouse | Recha Stern |
Children | Rosabelle Laemmle Bergerman (1903–1965) Carl Laemmle Jr. (1908–1979) |
Family | Stanley Bergerman (son-in-law) Carla Laemmle (niece) |
Signature | |
Carl Laemmle ( /ˈlɛmli/ ; born Karl Lämmle; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a German-American film producer and the co-founder and, until 1934, owner of Universal Pictures. He produced or worked on over 400 films.
Regarded as one of the most important of the early film pioneers, Laemmle was born in what is now Germany. He immigrated to the United States in 1884 and worked in Chicago for 20 years before he began buying nickelodeons, eventually expanding into a film distribution service, the Laemmle Film Service, then into production as Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP), later renamed Universal Film Manufacturing Company, and later still renamed Universal Pictures Company.
Karl Lämmle was born in 1867 to Julius Baruch Lämmle and Rebekka Lämmle, a Jewish couple in the Radstrasse, a street in the Jewish quarter of Laupheim, in the Kingdom of Württemberg. [1] His father was a cattle merchant, also involved in land transactions. The family struggled financially and lived in poverty: Of his eleven siblings only 3 reached adulthood. [2] He was one of the youngest children, and close to his mother, who enrolled him in a Jewish school. When he was 13, she arranged a three-year apprenticeship for him in Ichenhausen, a nearby village, where he learned accounting and sales, and worked to support his family. [3]
After his mother died in 1883, Laemmle decided to emigrate to the US for a better life, also following his thirteen-year-older brother Joseph. For his 17th birthday, his father had given him the tickets for an Atlantic crossing on the steamboat SS Neckar plus fifty dollars. He left Bremerhaven on January 28, 1884, and arrived in New York on February 14, 1884. [2] He settled in Chicago. Here he lived for about twenty years as a bookkeeper and office manager. [4] In 1889, he became a naturalized American citizen. [3] Laemmle worked a variety of jobs, but by 1894 he was the bookkeeper of the Continental Clothing Company in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he introduced a bolder advertising style. [3]
In 1906, at the age of 39, Laemmle quit his job. He initially wanted to open a network of cheap retail stores, but changed his mind after entering a nickelodeon. [2] He started one of the first motion picture theaters in Chicago, The White Front on Milwaukee Avenue, and quickly branched out into film exchange services. [3] He challenged Thomas Edison's monopoly on moving pictures, the Motion Picture Patents Company, under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. [3] As part of his offensive against Edison's company, Laemmle began advertising individual "stars," such as Mary Pickford and Florence Lawrence, thus increasing their individual earning power, and thus their willingness to side with the "Independents." [3]
After moving to New York,[ when? ] Carl Laemmle became involved in producing movies, forming Independent Moving Pictures (IMP); the city was the site of many new movie-related businesses. On April 30, 1912, in New York, Laemmle brought together Pat Powers of Powers Motion Picture Company, Mark Dintenfass of Champion Film Company, William Swanson of Rex Motion Picture Company, David Horsley of Nestor Film Company, as well as Charles Baumann and Adam Kessel of the New York Motion Picture Company, to merge their companies with IMP as the "Universal Film Manufacturing Company", with Laemmle assuming the role of president. [5] [6] They founded the Company with studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where at the beginning of the 20th century many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based. [7] [8] [9] [10]
On March 15, 1915, Laemmle opened the world's largest motion picture production facility, Universal Studios Hollywood, on a 230-acre (0.9-km2) converted farm in the San Fernando Valley, just over the Cahuenga Pass from Hollywood. [11]
Universal maintained two East Coast offices: The first was located at 1600 Broadway, New York City. This building, initially known as the Studebaker Building, was razed around 2004 or 2005. The second location to house Universal's executive offices was at 730 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Many years later, 445 Park Avenue was the location of Universal's executive offices. In 1916, Laemmle sponsored the $3,000 three-foot-tall solid silver Universal Trophy for the winner of the annual Universal race at the Uniontown Speedway board track in southwestern Pennsylvania. Universal filmed each race from 1916 to 1922.[ citation needed ]
In 1936, Laemmle and his son were removed from the company he founded by a hostile takeover. He briefly resumed distribution with a partner, Michael Mindlin, specializing in foreign films as CL Imports, in the mid-1930s, but for the most part remained in secluded retirement until his death.[ citation needed ]
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In 1898, Laemmle married Recha Stern, the niece of Sam Stern, his employer at Continental Clothing Company. Recha gave birth to Rosabelle in 1903 and Julius Laemmle (Carl Laemmle Jr.) in 1908. Rosabelle Laemmle Bergerman was later married to Stanley Bergerman.
After moving to California, Laemmle purchased as a residence for his family the former home of film pioneer Thomas Ince on Benedict Canyon Drive, Beverly Hills, a house which was razed in the early 1940s. Laemmle also maintained a large apartment for himself and his two children at 465 West End Avenue, New York City, one block off Riverside Drive near the Hudson River.
Recha Stern Laemmle contracted the Spanish flu and died from pneumonia on January 13, 1919, at age 43. [12]
Asked how to pronounce his surname, he told The Literary Digest , "The name means little lamb, and is pronounced as if it were spelled 'lem-lee'." [13]
His niece, Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle, known professionally as Carla Laemmle, appeared in several films until her retirement from acting at the end of the 1930s. His great-nephew, Michael Laemmle, is a well-known resident of Darwin, California, and was featured in the 2011 documentary Darwin: No Services Ahead. His great-grandniece, Antonia Carlotta, talks about him at length in Universally Me, her web series about the history of Universal Studios. [14]
Poet Ogden Nash observed the following about Laemmle's habit of giving his son and nephews top executive positions in his studios: [15]
Uncle Carl Laemmle
Has a very large faemmle.
Family members involved in the film industry included Isadore Bernstein, [16] Joseph Stern, and Abe Stern, all brothers-in-law, and Ernst Laemmle, Edward Laemmle and Max and Kurt Laemmle. The great director William Wyler was his cousin.
Laemmle died from cardiovascular disease on September 24, 1939, in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 72. [5] Laemmle was entombed in the Chapel Mausoleum at Home of Peace Cemetery.
Laemmle, although having made hundreds of films in his active years as a producer (1909–1934), is remembered for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of The Opera (1925), both with Lon Chaney Sr. in the title role, and The Man Who Laughs (1928) and most of the early sound horror films, such as Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), with his son, Carl Jr.
Laemmle remained connected to his home town of Laupheim throughout his life, providing financial support to it. In the 1930s he sponsored hundreds of Jews from Laupheim and Württemberg to emigrate from Nazi Germany to the United States, paying both emigration and immigration fees, [18] thus saving them from the Holocaust. To ensure and facilitate their immigration, Laemmle contacted American authorities, members of the House of Representatives and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He also intervened to try to secure entry for the refugees on board the SS St. Louis, who were ultimately sent back from Havana to Europe in 1939, where many were murdered in the Holocaust. [19]
Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures is an American film production and distribution company, a division of Universal Studios, which is owned by NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast.
The Home of Peace Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Universal City or Universal Studios Complex is an unincorporated area within the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Approximately 415 acres, within and immediately outside the area is the property of Universal Pictures, one of the five major film studios in the United States: about 70 percent of the studio's property is inside this unincorporated area, while the remaining 30 percent is within the Los Angeles city limits. Universal City is nearly surrounded by Los Angeles, with the area's northeastern corner touching the city of Burbank.
Carl Laemmle Jr. was an American film producer - studio executive and heir of Carl Laemmle, who had founded Universal Studios. He was head of production at the studio from 1928 to 1936.
The Nestor Film Company, originally known as the Nestor Motion Picture Company, was an American motion picture production company. It was founded in 1909 as the West Coast production unit of the Centaur Film Company located in Bayonne, New Jersey. While not the first movie studio in Los Angeles, Nestor made great strides on October 27, 1911, by establishing the first permanent motion picture studio in Hollywood, California, and producing the first Hollywood films. The company later merged with its distributor, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, on May 20, 1912. Nestor remained a recognizable brand name for Universal until at least the middle of 1917.
The Victor Film Company was a motion picture company formed in 1912 by movie star Florence Lawrence and her husband, Harry Solter. The company established Victor Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based there at the beginning of the 20th century.
Lewis J. Selznick was an American producer in the early years of the film industry. After initial involvement with World Film at Fort Lee, New Jersey, he established Selznick Pictures in California.
The star system was the method of creating, promoting and exploiting stars in Hollywood films from the 1920s until the 1960s. Movie studios would select promising young actors and glamorise and create personas for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds. Examples of stars who went through the star system include Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, and Rock Hudson.
The Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) was a motion picture studio and production company founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle. The company was based in New York City, with production facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In 1912, IMP merged with several other production companies to form Universal Film Manufacturing Company, later renamed Universal Pictures Company with Laemmle as president.
Pierre Ernest Jules Brulatour was a pioneering executive figure in American silent cinema. Beginning as American distribution representative for Lumiere Brothers raw film stock in 1907, he joined producer Carl Laemmle in forming the Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company in 1909, effectively weakening the stronghold of the Motion Picture Patents Company, headed by Thomas Edison, a large trust company that was then monopolizing the American film industry through contracts with hand-picked, established studios. By 1911 Brulatour was president of the Sales Company. He was a founder of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, later known as Universal Pictures.
Paul Kohner was an Austrian-American talent agent and producer who managed the careers of many stars and others—like Ingrid Bergman, Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, John Huston, Liv Ullmann and Billy Wilder—of the golden age of Hollywood, especially those who came from Europe before World War II. He was married to the Mexican-American actress, Lupita Tovar. His brother was Frederick Kohner, a novelist and screenwriter, his daughter was the actress Susan Kohner. His grandsons are the filmmakers Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz.
Julius Stern was an American film producer. He produced 541 films between 1917 and 1929. He was a co-founder of Universal Studios. He was born in Hintersteinau, Germany, and died in New York City, New York. He was the brother of producer Abe Stern and the brother-in-law of Universal Studios co-founder Carl Laemmle.
Charles R. Rogers, was an American film producer whose career spanned both the silent and sound film eras. Rogers began his career on the 1924 silent film, A Cafe in Cairo, produced by the short-lived Hunt Stromberg Productions. After Stromberg ceased productions in 1925, Rogers would found his own independent company, Charles R. Rogers Productions. He would also produce for major studios such as RKO Radio Pictures, Universal, and United Artists. The pinnacle of his career would be from 1936 to 1938 when he was chosen as the vice-president in charge of production for Universal Pictures. He died as the result of injuries sustained in a car accident in 1957.
The Champion Film Company was an independent production company founded in 1909 by Mark M. Dintenfass. The studio was one of the film companies that merged to form Universal Pictures.
Barriers of Society is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Lloyd B. Carleton. Universal based the film on the story written by Clarke Irvine and adapted for the screen by Fred Myton. The feature film stars Dorothy Davenport, Emory Johnson, and an all-star cast of Universal contract players.
A Yoke of Gold is a 1916 American silent black and white melodrama directed by Lloyd B. Carleton and starring Dorothy Davenport and Emory Johnson. Based on an original story by Rob Wagner, it is a period piece set in the early days of the California missions.
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The Unattainable is a 1916 American Black and White silent drama directed by Lloyd B. Carleton. The film is based on the story by Elwood D. Henning. The photoplay stars Dorothy Davenport and Emory Johnson.
The Way of the World is a 1916 American silent Feature film. The film was directed by Lloyd B. Carleton, while F. McGrew Willis adapted the screenplay from Clyde Fitch's play. The cast of this drama includes Hobart Bosworth, Dorothy Davenport, and Emory Johnson.
Black Friday was a 1916 American silent Feature film directed by Lloyd B. Carleton. Universal based the film on the novel written by Frederic S. Isham and adapted for the screen by Eugenie Magnus Ingleton. The drama stars Dorothy Davenport, Emory Johnson, and a cast of Universal contract players.
Carl Laemmle Sr., pioneer motion-picture producer, died in his home here today at the age of 72. Mr. Laemmle had been ill for some time. Death resulted from a heart attack, which came as he lay in bed. He had suffered two other attacks earlier in the day. ...