 | |
| Industry | Motion pictures |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 8, 1912 |
| Founder | Adolph Zukor |
| Defunct | 1916 |
| Fate | Corporate merger |
| Successors | Famous Players–Lasky Paramount Pictures |
| Headquarters | , United States |
The Famous Players Film Company was a film company founded in 1912 by Adolph Zukor in partnership with the Frohman brothers, powerful New York City theatre owners and producers.
Discussions to form the company were held at The Lambs, a famous theater club where Charles and Daniel Frohman were members.[ citation needed ] The company advertised "Famous Players in Famous Plays" and its first release was the French film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) starring Sarah Bernhardt and Lou Tellegen. Its first actual production was The Count of Monte Cristo (1912, released 1913), directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring James O'Neill, the father of dramatist Eugene O'Neill.
In 1914, the company purchased the former headquarters of New York City's Ninth Mounted Cavalry unit at 221 West 26th Street in Manhattan. [1] The cavernous brick building made excellent filming space for Zukor, and the modernized site is still used today as Chelsea Television Studios. [1]
Hiring its performers straight from the New York City stage, Famous Players had an early roster of some of the city's biggest names including Marguerite Clark, Hazel Dawn, and H. B. Warner. [1] The company also featured cinema's biggest star of the era, Mary Pickford, and presented theater idol John Barrymore in his first two feature films. [1] The company produced both short and feature-length productions.
In 1916, the company merged with the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company to form Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. [2]
In 1915, the company established Famous Players Fiction Studios at 5300 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. The new studio's first film starred Mary Pickford. [3] The studio later became Clune Studio, then California Studio, then Gross -Krasne, [4] followed by Producers Studios Inc., and is now known as Raleigh Studios. [5] Raleigh Studios is known for being the site of Gunsmoke,Perry Mason, and Let's Make a Deal . It is one of the oldest studios in Hollywood.[ citation needed ]
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the namesake division 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.
Samuel Goldwyn, also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor and executive of several motion picture studios in Hollywood. He was awarded the 1973 Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1947) and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1958).
The Hollywood Heritage Museum, also known as the "Hollywood Studio Museum," is located on Highland Ave. in Hollywood, California, United States.
William Wadsworth Hodkinson, known more commonly as W. W. Hodkinson, was born in Independence, Kansas. Known as The Man Who Invented Hollywood, he opened one of the first movie theaters in Ogden, Utah in 1907 and within just a few years changed the way movies were produced, distributed, and exhibited. He became a leading West Coast film distributor in the early days of motion pictures and in 1914 he founded and became president of the first nationwide film distributor, Paramount Pictures Corporation. Hodkinson was also responsible for doodling the mountain that became the Paramount logo also in 1914. After being driven out of Paramount, he established his own independent distribution company, the W. W. Hodkinson Corporation, in 1917, before selling it off in 1924. He left the motion picture business in 1929 to form Hodkinson Aviation Corporation, and later formed the Central American Aviation Corporation and Companía Nacional de Aviación in Guatemala.
Jesse Louis Lasky was an American pioneer motion picture producer who was a key founder of what was to become Paramount Pictures, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr.
Salome of the Tenements is a 1925 American silent drama film adapted to the screen by Sonya Levien from the Anzia Yezierska novel of the same name. Made by Jesse L. Lasky and Adolph Zukor's Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, a division of Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Sidney Olcott and starred Jetta Goudal and Godfrey Tearle.
The Famous Players–Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.
Helen Marguerite Clark was an American stage and silent film actress. As a movie actress, at one time Clark was second only to Mary Pickford in popularity. With a few exceptions and some fragments, most of Clark's films are considered lost.
Famous Players may refer to
The Frohman brothers were American theatre owners, including on Broadway, and theatrical producers who also owned and operated motion picture production companies.
Hiram Abrams was an early American movie mogul and one of the first presidents of Paramount Pictures. He was also the first managing director of United Artists.
Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice in the Hollywood studio system from the turn of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948). Under block booking, "independent ('unaffiliated') theater owners were forced to take large numbers of a studio's pictures without knowing much about them. Those studios could then parcel out B movies along with A-class features and star vehicles, which made both production and distribution operations more economical." The element of the system involving the purchase of unseen pictures is known as blind bidding.
Mary Pickford (1892–1979) was a Canadian-American motion picture actress, producer, and writer. During the silent film era she became one of the first great celebrities of the cinema and a popular icon known to the public as "America's Sweetheart".
Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, Les Amours d'Élisabeth, Reine d'Angleterre or La reine Élisabeth is a 1912 feature 4-reel French silent film based on the love affair between Elizabeth I of England and the Earl of Essex. It was condensed from a play of the same name and directed by Louis Mercanton and Henri Desfontaines. It was shot in Paris and starred Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth and Lou Tellegen as Essex. Bernhardt by then was 68 and said of the film "This is my last chance at immortality". She and Tellegen were already romantically involved, and this was their second film together.
Margaret Illington was an American stage actress popular in the first decade of the 20th century. She later made an attempt at silent film acting by making two films with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players–Lasky franchise.
Caprice is a 1913 silent film produced by Daniel Frohman and Adolph Zukor released by Famous Players Film Company and starring Mary Pickford. J. Searle Dawley directed. Though Zukor helped finance the film it was distributed on a 'State's Rights' arrangement primarily since no Paramount Pictures had yet to exist. The story of this film had been acted on the stage by a young Minnie Maddern Fiske in the 1880s, one of her earliest successes as an adult actress. The same story gives Pickford the chance to arise to the height of a fine actress instead of just merely a popular performer. This film is lost.
Fanchon the Cricket is a 1915 American silent drama film produced by Famous Players Film Company and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is based on a novel, La Petite Fadette by George Sand. It was directed by James Kirkwood and stars Mary Pickford, at the time working for Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman. A previous film version of the story was released in 1912 by IMP and directed by Herbert Brenon.
The Count of Monte Cristo is a 1913 silent film adventure directed by Joseph A. Golden and Edwin S. Porter based on Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel of the same name. It starred James O'Neill, a stage actor and father of playwright Eugene O'Neill. James O'Neill had been playing Edmond Dantès most of his adult life and was famous in the role. Daniel Frohman and Adolph Zukor produced together. Edwin S. Porter co-directed with Joseph Golden, though this was probably necessary as Porter also served as the film's cinematographer. The film was released on November 1, 1913.
The Hidden Pearls is a surviving 1918 American silent drama film directed by George Melford and starring Sessue Hayakawa. It was produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky and distributed by Famous Players–Lasky and Paramount Pictures. The production was shot in Hawaii.
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