Gladys Marie Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian actress resident in the U.S., and also producer, screenwriter and film studio founder, who was a pioneer in the US film industry with a Hollywood career that spanned five decades.
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its US label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president too. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca, and the link between the UK and US Decca label was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre.
Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures, is an American film production and distribution company owned by NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast.
MCA Inc. (originally an initialism for Music Corporation of America) was an American media conglomerate founded in 1924. Originally a talent agency with artists in the music business as clients, the company became a major force in the film industry, and later expanded into television production. MCA published music, booked acts, ran a record company, represented film, television, and radio stars, and eventually produced and sold television programs to the three major television networks, especially NBC.
MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later became part of Universal Music Group.
Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr., known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably as Old Shatterhand in a film series by the West German studio Constantin Film. At the height of his fame, he was one of the most popular actors in German-speaking cinema, and received Bambi Award and Bravo Otto nominations for the honor.
American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company.
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner.
Carl Laemmle 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.
Universal Television LLC is an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Universal Studio Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It serves as the network television production arm of NBC; a predecessor of the company previously assumed such functions, and a substantial portion of the company's shows air on the network. It was formerly known by various names, including Revue Studios, Universal Pictures Television Department, Universal-International Television, Studios USA Television LLC, Universal Studios Network Programming, Universal Network Television, Universal Domestic Television, NBC Universal Television Studio, and Universal Media Studios. Re-established in 2004, both NBC Studios and the original Universal Television are predecessors of the current Universal Television, formerly known as NBC Universal Television Studio and Universal Media Studios.
Jack Kapp was a record company executive with Brunswick Records who founded the American Decca Records in 1934 along with British Decca founder Edward Lewis and later American Decca head Milton Rackmil. He oversaw Bing Crosby's rise to success as a recording artist in the early 1930s, and, four decades later, Crosby still gave appreciation to Kapp for diversifying his song catalogue into various styles and genres, saying, "I thought he was crazy, but I just did what he told me." Kapp could not read or sing music, but to his talent he stressed the credo, "Where's the melody?"
Lewis Robert Wasserman was an American businessman and talent agent, described as "the last of the legendary movie moguls" and "arguably the most powerful and influential Hollywood titan in the four decades after World War II". His career spanned nearly eight decades from the 1920s to the 2000s; he started working as a cinema usher before dropping out of high school, rose to become the president of MCA Inc. and led its takeover of Universal Pictures, during which time Wasserman "brought about changes in virtually every aspect of show business". In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton. Several years later, he spoke of his ongoing work at Universal to Variety, saying, "I am under contract here for the rest of my life, and I don't think they would throw me out of my office—my name is on the building."
William B. Goetz was an American film producer and studio executive. Goetz was one of the founders of Twentieth Century Pictures, and later served as vice president of 20th Century Fox after the studio's merger with the Fox Film Company. At Universal-International, he served as the head of production from 1946 until 1953.
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.
Sidney Jay Sheinberg was an American businessman, lawyer and entertainment executive. He served as president and CEO of MCA Inc. and Universal Studios for over 20 years.
Follow the Boys also known as Three Cheers for the Boys is a 1944 musical film made by Universal Pictures during World War II as an all-star cast morale booster to entertain the troops abroad and the civilians at home. The film was directed by A. Edward "Eddie" Sutherland and produced by Charles K. Feldman. The movie stars George Raft and Vera Zorina and features Grace McDonald, Charles Grapewin, Regis Toomey and George Macready. At one point in the film, Orson Welles saws Marlene Dietrich in half during a magic show. W.C. Fields, in his first movie since 1941, performs a classic pool-playing presentation he first developed in vaudeville four decades earlier in 1903.
Berle Adams was an American music industry executive and talent booking agent best known for co-founding Mercury Records in the 1940s and later becoming a senior executive at MCA.
Ned Stone Tanen was an American film studio executive. The films he produced were some of the most popular films of the 1970s and 1980s, including the 2 key Brat Pack films The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire, as well as Smokey and the Bandit, American Graffiti, Coal Miner's Daughter, The Deer Hunter, Crocodile Dundee, Top Gun, Animal House, and many others.
Gladys Nederlander was a theater and television producer.
Charles Herbert Christie and Alfred Ernest Christie were Canadian motion picture entrepreneurs.
