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Adolf Cukor (Adolph Zukor) (January 7, 1873–June 10, 1976) was the founder of Paramount Pictures, and one of the greatest film moguls of all time.

He was born to a Jewish family in Ricse, Hungary, which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and emigrated to America in 1889, at the age of 16. Like most immigrants, he began modestly. When he first landed in New York, he stayed with his family and worked in an upholstery shop. A friend got him a job as an apprentice at a furrier. Zukor stayed there for two years. When he left to become a "contract" worker, sewing fur pieces and selling them himself, he was nineteen years old and an accomplished designer. But he was young and adventuresome, and the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, commemorating Columbus's discovery of America, drew him to the Midwest. Once there he started a fur business. In the second season of operation, Zukor's Novelty Fur Company expanded to twenty-five men and opened a branch.

One of the stubborn fallacies of movie history is that the men who created the film industry were all impoverished young vulgarians. Zukor clearly didn't fit this profile. By 1903, he already looked and lived like a wealthy young burgher, and he certainly earned the income of one. He had a commodious apartment at 111th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City's wealthy German-Jewish section.

He became involved in the motion picture industry when in 1903 his cousin, Max Goldstein approached him for a loan for opening an arcade. The arcade salon was to feature Thomas Edison's marvels: phonographs, electric lights and moving pictures. Zukor not only gave Goldstein the money but insisted on forming a partnership to open another one.

In 1912, Adolph Zukor established Famous Players in Famous Plays as the American distribution company for the French film production Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt. The following year he obtained the financial backing of the Frohman brothers, the powerful New York City theatre impresarios. Their primary goal was to bring noted stage actors to the screen and they created the Famous Players Film Company that produced The Prisoner of Zenda (1913). The studio evolved into Famous Players-Lasky and then Paramount Pictures, of which he served as president until 1936. He revolutionized the film industry by organizing production, distribution, and exhibition within a single company.

Zukor was also an accomplished director and producer. He retired from Paramount Pictures in 1959 and thereafter assumed Chairman Emeritus status, a position he held up until his death at the age of 103 in Los Angeles.

• Zukor, Adolph, The Public Is Never Wrong: My 50 Years in the Motion Picture Industry (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1953)

One correction: the correct name of the birthplace of Zukor is Ricse, not Risce. More info on this village in Hungarian: http://ricse.freeweb.hu/

• Obituary, NY Times, June 11, 1976 Adolph Zukor Is Dead at 103; Built Paramount Movie Empire
• Adolph Zukor at the Internet Movie Database
• Theatre Historical Society of America - official site

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