Marcus Loew

• Born: May 7, 1870
• Birthplace: Queens, New York
• Died: September 5, 1927
• Place of death: Glen Cove, New York

Entrepreneur, business executive, and investor

Late in the nineteenth century, Loew realized the potential of motion pictures. He invested successively in penny arcades, in nickelodeons, and eventually in lavish theaters to exhibit films. To ensure a steady stream of films for his venues, he ultimately purchased several production companies that evolved into one of Hollywood’s great studios.

Early Life

Marcus Loew (MARK-uhs loh) was one of five children born to immigrant parents: a Viennese waiter, Herman, and his German-born wife, Ida. Loew dropped out of school early to help provide for his family, and he worked at a variety of jobs: as a newsboy and street vendor, as a printer and mapmaker, as a clothing store clerk, and as a furrier. While still employed in the fur-manufacturing business in 1894, he married Caroline “Carrie” Rosenheim, who bore him twin sons, David and Arthur.

A buyer of furs, Loew in 1899 traveled to Chicago, where he met fellow Jewish fur merchant and future film impresario Adolph Zukor. The two men, in conjunction with David Warfield, an actor and friend of Marcus, began investing in penny arcades in New York. The penny arcades featured a variety of coin-operated machines, including hand-cranked peep shows, that allowed viewers to watch film clips. By 1903, these proved so successful that the enterprise, called the Automatic Vaudeville Company, had expanded to other Eastern Seaboard cities. Two years later, the business, called the People’s Vaudeville Company, began converting to nickelodeons. These were low-budget storefront operations that, for five cents per customer, presented continuous shows blending live vaudeville acts and short silent films—enlivened by musical accompaniment from piano, organ, or accordion—from early morning to midnight. Nickelodeons were popular with working-class and immigrant audiences and profitable for Loew and his partners.

Life’s Work

Throughout the early twentieth century, Loew continued to expand his network of film-vaudeville houses. The name of his business changed several times: to Loew’s Consolidated Enterprises, Loew’s Theatrical Enterprises, and eventually to Loew’s Incorporated. He grew wealthy and built a magnificent family estate on more than forty acres in Glen Cove, New York.

Following World War I, when motion pictures supplanted vaudeville as entertainment, Loew quickly adapted to changing times. He began building theaters primarily to show films. The new Loew theaters—such as the flagship Loew’s State on Broadway in downtown New York City—were a far cry from the dingy arcades and nickelodeons and were intended for an upscale crowd. Gone were the nickelodeon’s hard benches and chairs, replaced by cushioned seating to accommodate thousands of viewers. The ambience was luxurious, with crystal chandeliers, plush carpeting, gilt and marble, commissioned murals, and sweeping staircases. The new theaters were a public sensation and hugely profitable.

Capitalizing on his success, Loew embarked on a nationwide theater-building spree during the 1920’s, erecting structures in major metropolitan communities across the United States. By 1924, he operated more than one hundred deluxe film houses and was the nation’s dominant theater owner.

To ensure a steady supply of films for his theaters and to better control costs associated with their production and distribution, Loew in the early 1920’s invested in filmmaking. In 1920, he spent three million dollars to acquire modestly successful Metro Pictures of Hollywood. He then purchased, for four million dollars, the financially troubled Goldwyn Productions’ modern studio facilities and forty-acre back lots. Finally, for less than $100,000, he bought Louis B. Mayer Productions. In 1924, these three entities were merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Mayer was named vice president and general manager of the new conglomerate, and boy genius Irving Thalberg was put in charge of production. MGM began turning out a string of hits, beginning with He Who Gets Slapped (1924) and The Big Parade (1925), and became a dominant force in Hollywood. Loew, however, would not live to fully enjoy the fruits of success: He died of a heart attack at age fifty-seven, leaving a thirty-million-dollar estate to his wife and children.

Significance

For his important contributions to the film industry, Loew posthumously was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Though Loew’s name is still synonymous with palatial film houses, his various enterprises rose and fell after his death. The Loew’s theater chain changed hands numerous times from the 1970’s onward. Some individual theaters have been demolished. Others have closed and sit empty. Still others have been refurbished or converted to various uses, such as live entertainment centers or churches. In the twenty-first century, nearly two hundred Loew’s theaters remain, many of them cineplexes, with more than 2,200 screens.

Likewise, MGM—producers of numerous cartoons, sophisticated musicals, and such classic films as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939)—began to fade in influence by the early 1960’s. Its facilities (studios, film libraries, name, and other assets) have been bought, sold, or parceled out several times. In 2004, Sony Corporation of America and other investors acquired MGM.

Bibliography

Bingen, Steven, Stephen X. Sylvester, and Michael Troyan. M-G-M: Hollywood’s GreatestBacklot. Santa Monica, Calif.: Santa Monica Press, 2010. This behind-the-scenes history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contains interviews with many actors and film crew members and numerous photographs of filmmaking during the golden age of Hollywood.

Gabler, Neal. An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. New York: Anchor, 1989. An entertaining illustrated account of the efforts of Jewish entrepreneurs such as Loew, the executives, producers, writers, talent agents, theater operators, public-relations mavens, and others who created the studio and star systems that dominated the domestic filmmaking business for the first half of the twentieth century.

Melnick, Ross, and Andrea Fuchs. Cinema Treasures: A New Look at Classic Movie Theaters. Minneapolis, Minn.: MBI, 2004. This profusely illustrated volume focuses on the history, cultural influence, and architecture of film theaters, including many constructed under the direction of Loew.