George Kleine | |
|---|---|
 Kleine c. 1914 | |
| Born | 1864 New York, US |
| Died | June 8, 1931 (aged 66–67) Los Angeles, California, US |
| Occupation | Film producer |
| Years active | 1893-1928 |
George Kleine (1864 –June 8, 1931) was an American film producer and distributor and cinema pioneer.
Klein's father, Charles, was a New York optician who sold optical devices and stereopticons. [1] Klein joined the family firm, moving to Chicago in 1893 where he set up the Kleine Optical Company. In 1896, the company started selling film-making equipment, and in 1899, the company obtained an exclusive arrangement with Thomas Edison to sell his film and equipment in the Chicago area. [1]
In 1903, Kleine started distributing Biograph films as well as European films and was a pioneer in renting films to theatres. He became involved in patent disputes with Thomas Edison in 1908, causing members of the industry to establish the Motion Picture Patents Company. He founded Kalem Company, an American film studio in New York City in 1907 with Samuel Long, [2] and Frank J. Marion. The company was named for their initials, K, L, and M. Kleine. Klein was involved in the company for only a short period of time; however, it was a profitable investment for him, as his partners were soon successful enough to buy out his shares at a considerable premium.
Kleine was a national distributor of silent movies in the 1910s, a notable example being Essanay Studios 1918 film, “Men Who Have Made Love to Me” starring Mary MacLane.
Kleine retired in 1928 [1] and died in Los Angeles, California, in 1931.
His papers are retained by the Library of Congress. [3]
The Motion Picture Patents Company, founded in December 1908 and terminated in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-branches, the leading film distributor and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, Eastman Kodak. The MPPC ended the domination of foreign films on US screens, standardized the manner in which films were distributed and exhibited within the US, and improved the quality of US motion pictures by internal competition. It also discouraged its members' entry into feature film production, and the use of outside financing, both to its members' eventual detriment.
Sidney Olcott was a Canadian-born film producer, director, actor and screenwriter.
Alice Brady was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she plays the flighty mother of Carole Lombard's character, and In Old Chicago (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros. in 1925.
The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over 3000 short films and 12 feature films. During the height of silent film as a medium, Biograph was the most prominent U.S. film studio and one of the most respected and influential studios worldwide, only rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri and France's Pathé. The company was home to pioneering director D. W. Griffith and such actors as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore.
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago, Illinois. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, Colleen Moore, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Selig Polyscope also established Southern California's first permanent movie studio, in the historic Edendale district of Los Angeles.
Edison Studios was an American film production organization, owned by companies controlled by inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas Edison. The studio made close to 1,200 films, as part of the Edison Manufacturing Company (1894–1911) and then Thomas A. Edison, Inc. (1911–1918), until the studio's closing in 1918. Of that number, 54 were feature length, and the remainder were shorts. All of the company's films have fallen into the public domain because they were released before 1928.
The Kalem Company was an early American film studio founded in New York City in 1907. It was one of the first companies to make films abroad and to set up winter production facilities, first in Florida and then in California. Kalem was sold to Vitagraph Studios in 1917.
Ruth Roland was an American stage and film actress and film producer.
Frank Joseph Marion was an American motion picture pioneer. He was born in Tidioute, Pennsylvania. He had a wife named Florence and 4 daughters and a son. He was married to Florence until her death.
Alice Hollister was an American silent film actress who appeared in around 90 films between 1910 and 1925. She is known for her roles in movies such as From the Manger to the Cross and The Vampire.
Marshall Ambrose "Mickey" Neilan was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, whose work in films began in the early silent era.
Seena Owen was an American silent film actress and screenwriter.
Louise Huff was an American actress of the silent film era.
Marcus McDermott was an Australian actor who starred on Broadway and in over 180 American films from 1909 until his death.
Irene Fenwick was an American stage and silent film actress. She was married to Lionel Barrymore from 1923 until her death in 1936. Fenwick has several surviving feature films from her productions for the Kleine-Edison Feature Film Service, which also has numerous surviving shorts in the Library of Congress.
Arthur Shirley was an Australian actor, writer, producer, and director of theatre and film. He experienced some success as a film actor in Hollywood between 1914 and 1920.
Hepworth Picture Plays was a British film production company active during the silent era. Founded in 1897 by the cinema pioneer Cecil Hepworth, it was based at Walton Studios west of London.
Harold Holland was a British theatre and silent film actor and playwright. He was born in Bloomsbury, London. He played Dr. Rogers in the 1913 film Riches and Rogues, and took the lead role of Dr. Thomas "Tom" Flynn in the 1914 comedy The Lucky Vest. After having worked on Charlie Chaplin films including Shanghaied and The Bank in 1915, he was hired by the Morosco Photoplay Company in 1916 as it expanded.
The Dawson Film Find (DFF) was the accidental discovery in 1978 of 372 film titles preserved in 533 reels of silent-era nitrate films in the Klondike Gold Rush town of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. The reels had been buried under an abandoned hockey rink in 1929 and included lost films of feature movies and newsreels. A construction excavation inadvertently uncovered the forgotten cache of discarded films, which were unintentionally preserved by the permafrost.
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