Adolph Zukor

• Born: January 7, 1873
• Birthplace: Ricse, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Hungary)
• Died: June 10, 1976
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Hungarian-born business executive and entrepreneur

Zukor was one of the pioneers of the American film industry. Like other Jewish immigrants who were instrumental in establishing that industry, he seized the opportunities promised by film, and his career spanned the spectrum from grimy penny arcades to the prestigious Paramount Pictures.

Early Life

Adolph Zukor (AY-dawlf ZEW-kur) was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early days of 1873, the son of merchant Jacob Zukor and his wife Hannah Liebermann. Orphaned at an early age, Adolph Zukor and his older brother were raised by his uncle, a rabbi. When Zukor was twelve he was apprenticed to a storekeeper, a position he held until he completed his apprenticeship. He immigrated to New York City about 1888 and learned the retail fur business by becoming a low-paid assistant to an established furrier. Moving to Chicago in the early 1890’s, Zukor opened his own fur-scarf manufacturing business. By 1897, the business was successful enough to enable him to marry Lottie Kaufman, with whom he had two children, Mildred and Eugene.

About 1900 the Zukor family returned to New York City. While Zukor’s primary work continued to be the fur business, he also developed a sideline, running a penny arcade. It featured an Edison Kinetoscope machine, a coin-operated device through which primitive and brief moving pictures could be viewed. With associates, Zukor opened additional venues, progressing from penny arcades to nickelodeons. With the growing profitability of his new endeavor, the fur business receded into the background.

Life’s Work

Atop one of his profitable lower Manhattan arcades, Zukor added a traditional theater, where, for a nickel, patrons could watch three short films projected onto a screen. He had come to realize that such venues were going to replace the gritty penny arcades and could draw a prosperous audience. He sold the arcades, concentrating on theater ownership. About 1910 business reversals forced him to partner with Marcus Loew, who would one day become a cinema powerhouse. After converting some of the theaters into vaudeville houses, Zukor retained ownership of a few others located in large East Coast cities.

To counteract the belief that the “flickers” were entertainment for only the poor masses, Zukor began promoting films that starred stage luminaries re-creating their famous roles. Vacating his partnership with Loew, Zukor teamed with theater impresario Daniel Frohman and paid a substantial amount in 1912 for the North American rights to screen actor Sarah Bernhardt’s Queen Elizabeth. The success of the film led to Zukor’s decision to produce his own films, with noted stage actors such as James O’Neill (father of Eugene), who re-created his famous role in The Count of Monte Cristo (1913). Other Broadway legends reenacted their famous roles in old chestnuts like The Prisoner of Zenda (1913).

Zukor dubbed his new company Famous Players Film Company, with the catchy publicity slogan “Famous Players in Famous Plays.” Appearing in his films was winsome little Mary Pickford, who was to become the leading female cinema star of the 1910’s.

After a few years, Zukor realized that the “Famous Players” formula was not sustainable. The stories were generally overly melodramatic and the acting styles laughably stilted. In 1916, with Jesse Lasky, a onetime competitor, and director Cecil B. DeMille he formed Famous Players-Lasky, to produce original screenplays appealing to the public’s evolving tastes. Future Hollywood super-producer Samuel Goldwyn was also involved in the company. The following year Zukor engineered a takeover of Paramount Pictures, up until then primarily a film distributor.

Zukor began the wholesale purchase of film theaters to assure a home for the studio’s product. By the 1920’s Paramount Pictures had become one of Hollywood’s major studios, with stars that included Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson, and Clara Bow. By this time the once-poor immigrant was a wealthy mogul with an imposing estate in the suburbs of New York. Unfortunately, Paramount’s rapid expansion proved to be too ambitious, once the Great Depression began in 1929, and the company went into receivership in 1933. However, Zukor managed to keep his job, and the studio’s star-packed roster, which included Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Mae West and other popular favorites, ensured a comeback for Paramount.

In 1948, Zukor received an honorary Academy Award for the great contribution to the industry he had done so much to foster. Until his death, he retained the title of chairman emeritus of Paramount Pictures, and when he reached the age of one hundred he was feted by the conglomerate Gulf and Western Corporation, which had assumed control of Paramount. In 1976, Zukor died of natural causes at the advanced age of 103.

Significance

DeMille called Zukor “little in nothing else but stature.” Indeed, Zukor had an outsized career. He was among the handful of Jewish immigrants with the vision to establish a flourishing film industry. His idea of elevating the cultural tone of films to widen their appeal to higher-income audiences proved successful. He was a pioneer in publicizing films for their stories and leading players rather than as mere novelties to accompany vaudeville acts. One of his accolades (perhaps exaggerated) was being called “the father of the feature film in America,” because he believed the public wanted longer films. He also was a pioneer of the efficient production practices that came to be known as the “Hollywood system,” which governed the industrial, economic, and political forces involved in making films. At one time, his Famous Players-Lasky was the world’s largest motion-picture production company and the first to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Zukor was one of the first moguls to insist on block booking, by which theater owners had to accept a studio’s less-prestigious films if they wanted to screen the major ones. Zukor also gained a major share of the distribution of films worldwide.

Bibliography

Irwin, Will. The House That Shadows Built: The Story of Adolph Zukor and the Rise of the Motion Picture Industry. 1928. Reprint. St. Trenton, Fla.: Ayers, 1975. An early and not objective biography of Zukor. It discusses his part in the founding of the American motion-picture industry and can almost be considered a publicity “puff” piece.

Krebs, Albin. “Adolph Zukor Is Dead at 103.” The New York Times, June 11, 1976. A comprehensive overview of Zukor’s astonishing career is presented in his obituary.

Zukor, Adolph, and Dale Kramer. The Public Is Never Wrong: The Autobiography of Adolph Zukor. New York: Putnam, 1953. Although it covers the main facts of Zukor’s life, this autobiography is not necessarily always accurate and reveals little about the inner person.