John Aglialoro | |
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Born | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US | November 27, 1943
Alma mater | Temple University |
Board member of | Atlas Society Museum of the American Revolution Barnes Foundation |
Spouse |
John Aglialoro (born November 27, 1943) is an American businessman and film producer. He is an entrepreneur who has owned and operated a variety of businesses, primarily in the health and fitness industries, as chairman and co-founder of UM Holdings Ltd. [1] (formerly United Medical Corporation) of Haddonfield, New Jersey. Owner of the movie rights to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Aglialoro is CEO of Atlas Distribution, [2] which he founded to distribute films using the technology developed to bring Rand's best-selling novel to the screen.
Born in Philadelphia the youngest of 4 children, Aglialoro grew up in Collingswood, New Jersey and was the first member of his family to attend college. [3] He graduated from Collingswood High School in 1961 and Temple University in 1965. [4] Aglialoro served as Chairman of Cybex International, a manufacturer of commercial exercise equipment, from 1983 to 2016 when UM Holdings sold Cybex to Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC). [5] He was Chairman of EHE International, a national provider of physical examinations, from 1987 to 2016 when the business was sold to Summit Partners.
Aglialoro is on the Board of Trustees of The Atlas Society, an objectivist think-tank, The Museum of the American Revolution, and the Barnes Foundation, a renowned collection of impressionist art by Philadelphia art collector Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951). He serves as co-chair of the Foundation for Individual Liberty, with a mission to support free markets, limited government and individual liberty. Aglialoro is the former mayor of Tavistock [6] a borough in Camden County, New Jersey (population 5 in 2010). Aglialoro has been profiled by Forbes [7] and Fortune [8] magazines and was praised in a Forbes/CNN blog post. [9] He received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge in 2018. [10]
During the almost two decades after acquiring the movie rights to Atlas Shrugged from the Estate of Ayn Rand, Aglialoro optioned the rights to several notable producers. In 2011, facing expiration of the rights, Aglialoro decided to finance the production and distribution himself to bring the epic novel to the screen. Since the book is more than 1200 pages separated into three parts, he and fellow Producer, Harmon Kaslow, decided that filming each part separately would enable more of the book's message to be delivered cinematically. On April 15, 2011, Atlas Shrugged: Part I premiered and ultimately played on 700 screens in the US earning $5M in box office. Aglialoro shared screenplay credits for his work on the script. [11] With the participation of additional executive producers, Aglialoro produced Atlas Shrugged: Part II which debuted in October 2012 on 1200 screens. The third and final part of the trilogy Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt? opened on 200 screens. [12] The movies were critically panned, but Aglialoro received a Saturn Award, an award from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, [13] an Anthem Film Festival Award and others. Aglialoro continues to consider partnering with other producers for a re-make or multi-part feature.
Using the technology tools developed for the distribution process required for Atlas Shrugged, Aglialoro formed Atlas Distribution in 2014. The company provides comprehensive services for theatrical film distribution through is proprietary Cinema CloudWorks [14] system.
Aglialoro is a poker enthusiast, winning the US Poker Championship in 2004. [15] He resides in Philadelphia with his wife and business partner, Joan Carter. [16]
Alice O'Connor, better known by her pen name Ayn Rand, was a Russian-born American author and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays.
Collingswood is a borough in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Center City Philadelphia. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 14,186, an increase of 260 (+1.9%) from the 2010 census count of 13,926, which in turn reflected a decline of 400 (−2.8%) from the 14,326 counted in the 2000 census.
David Christopher Kelley is an American philosopher. He is a professed Objectivist, though his position that Objectivism can be revised and influenced by other schools of thought has prompted disagreements with other Objectivists. Kelley is also an author of several books on philosophy and the founder of The Atlas Society, an institution he established in 1990 after permanently dissociating with Leonard Peikoff and the Ayn Rand Institute.
Harry Binswanger is an American professor and author. He is an Objectivist and a board member of the Ayn Rand Institute. He was an associate of Ayn Rand, working with her on The Ayn Rand Lexicon and helping her edit the second edition of Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. He is the author of How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation (2014).
Albert Stotland Ruddy was a Canadian-American film and television producer. He produced The Godfather (1972) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), both of which won him the Academy Award for Best Picture, and co-created the CBS sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971).
John A. Allison IV is an American businessman and the former CEO and president of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Allison held a number of leadership positions in BB&T Corp. from 1987 until 2010 when he retired. He now serves as a director at Moelis & Company.
Edward Malcolm Snider was an American business executive. He was the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, a Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League; the Wells Fargo Center; the regional sports network Comcast SportsNet; and Global Spectrum, an international facilities management company. He formerly owned the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association, and ran the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League for a few years in the 1960s.
Paul Johansson is an American-born Canadian actor and director in film and television, best known for playing Dan Scott on the WB/CW series, One Tree Hill, The Notebook and for his role as Nick Wolfe on the short lived Highlander: The Series spin-off Highlander: The Raven. He directed the 2011 film adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged: Part I.
Collingswood High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Collingswood in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the sole secondary school of Collingswood Public Schools.
Allan Stanley Gotthelf was an American philosopher. He was a scholar of the philosophies of both Aristotle and Ayn Rand.
Atlas Shrugged: Part I is a 2011 American political science fiction drama film directed by Paul Johansson. An adaptation of part of the philosopher Ayn Rand's 1957 novel of the same name, the film is the first in a trilogy encompassing the entire book. After various treatments and proposals floundered for nearly 40 years, investor John Aglialoro initiated production in June 2010. The film was directed by Paul Johansson and stars Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart and Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden.
John Galt is a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover the answer. Also, in the later part it becomes clear that Galt had been present in the book's plot all along, playing several important roles though not identified by name.
Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand. It is her longest novel, the fourth and final one published during her lifetime, and the one she considered her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing. She described the theme of Atlas Shrugged as "the role of man's mind in existence" and it includes elements of science fiction, mystery and romance. The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop Objectivism, including reason, property rights, individualism, libertarianism and capitalism, and depicts what Rand saw as the failures of governmental coercion. Of Rand's works of fiction, it contains her most extensive statement of her philosophical system.
Brian Patrick O'Toole is an American film producer and screenwriter. O'Toole's work includes co-producing the 2002 horror film Dog Soldiers and his screenwriting debut Cemetery Gates. He also wrote a monthly column for the prominent American magazine Fangoria for six years and currently works with Black Gate Entertainment, with whom he has written and produced several films, including Basement Jack, Evilution, Necropolitan and A Necessary Evil. He also wrote the screenplays for the Atlas Shrugged film adaptations.
Atlas Shrugged: Part II is a 2012 American drama film based on the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged by the philosopher Ayn Rand. It is the second installment in the Atlas Shrugged film series and the first sequel to the 2011 film Atlas Shrugged: Part I, continuing the story where its predecessor left off. Directed by John Putch, the film stars Samantha Mathis, Jason Beghe, Esai Morales, Patrick Fabian, Kim Rhodes, Richard T. Jones, and D. B. Sweeney. The film was released on October 12, 2012.
Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt? is a 2014 American science fiction-drama film based on the philosopher Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged. It is the third installment in the Atlas Shrugged film series and the sequel to the 2012 film Atlas Shrugged: Part II, continuing the story where its predecessor left off. The release, originally set for July 4, occurred on September 12, 2014. The film used a completely different cast and crew from the second film, which itself used a completely different cast from the first film. Directed by J. James Manera, it stars Laura Regan, Kristoffer Polaha, and Joaquim de Almeida.
Duncan Scott is a film and television writer, director, and producer. Scott was one of the screenwriters of Atlas Shrugged: Part II and Atlas Shrugged: Part III. Early in his career, he became involved in the restoration of the 1942 film We the Living, a project that he continued to be involved in over the next several decades. Scott also directed and produced for television, winning several Emmy and Telly Awards, as well as being nominated for a Peabody Award.
Harmon Kaslow is a licensed attorney and motion picture producer. Along with John Aglialoro, Kaslow produced a trilogy of movies based on the Ayn Rand novel titled "Atlas Shrugged" including Atlas Shrugged: Part I and Atlas Shrugged: Part II and Atlas Shrugged: Part III. Prior to producing the Atlas Shrugged movies, Kaslow was an executive at A-Mark Entertainment, Kismet Entertainment Group and an associate at Shea & Gould, an international law firm.
Joan Carter is an American businessperson and philanthropist. She is the President of UM Holdings Ltd. which she co-founded with John Aglialoro. Since 1973, UM Holdings has owned and operated a variety of business, primarily in the health and fitness industries. UM Holdings was the owner of Cybex International and EHE International., both of which were sold in 2016.