Full Name:Adolph Zukor
Occupation / Title:Businessman, President, Producer
Date of birth:07/01/1873
Date of death:10/06/1976
Birthplace:Ricse, Hungary
Associated studios:The Famous Players Film Company
Famous Players-Lasky
Paramount Pictures
Realist Pictures Corporation
Cosmopolitan Productions
Biography
Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian-American film producer and businessman, known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.
Family and early life
Zukor was born in Ricse, Hungary in 1873. At the age of seven he was orphaned and sent to live with his uncle Kalman Libermann, a rabbi. While his uncle wanted him to become a rabbi, Zukor believed he would be a businessman.
In 1889, at the age of 16, Zukor travelled to New York and began sweeping floors at a fur store (the job paid $2-a-week) while he studied English and Business. In 1892, Zukor and a friend, Morris Kohn, went to Chicago and opened their own fur business. As the business became successful, Zukor and Kohn moved their company to New York in 1900 and invested in running a penny arcade that featured phonographs and short movies.
In 1897, Zukor married Lottie Kaufman and they had two children. Eugene J. Zukor, became a Paramount executive in 1916, and Mildred Zukor Loew married Arthur Loew, son of Marcus Loew, Zukor’s business partner.
Career outline
As movies became a popular new medium, Zukor invested in a Nickelodeon theatre,
Hales’ Tours of Kansas City” which had audiences sit in a converted train cars and watch moving footage of landscapes with sounds of a train. While the novelty of Nickelodeon theatres wore-off, Zukor continued to open them with a fellow fur merchant, Marcus Loew.
Zukor and Loew established their own company, Lowe’s Enterprises, and opened film exhibition halls. However, Zukor faced the challenges of getting the exhibition rights to films. His frustrations established his want to produce his own films.
Zukor and broadway producer, Daniel Frohman, partnered to secure the U.S. rights to the French-Produced film, Queen Elizabeth, starring Sarah Bernhardt. The film brought a wealthier clientele and helped them launch their own production company, The Famous Players Film Company in 1912.
By 1914, Zukor and Frohman began working with Paramount pictures Corporation as their film distributor. In 1916, Famous Players merged with producer Jess Lasky’s Feature Play Company to form Famous Players-Lasky. Zukor invested in theatre chains and purchased stock in Paramount to protect his interests. Zukor proposed to Paramount’s board for Famous Players-Lasky to join Paramount to form an even stronger entity and became the new president of the conglomeration. In the 1920s, the company dropped the name Famous Players-Lasky and became Paramount Pictures.
Throughout the 1920s, Zukor had half of the major stars on his payroll including: Minnie Maddern Fiske, James K. Hackett, Mary Pickford, Marie Door, Pauline Frederick, Henry Ainley, Florence Reed. In 1935, Zukor became Paramount’s chairman and later held the position of chairman of the board and chairman Meritus until his death in 1976 at the age of 103.
Personal style
Zukor was described as a mild-mannered, at times ruthless, but reserved man.
References:
IMDb. “Adolph Zukor.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0958532/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm.
PBS. “Adolph Zukor (1873-1976).” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pickford-adolph-zukor-1873-1976/.