William Fox

Starting at the age 8 he had a series of jobs before starting his own business in 1900 which was sold to buy a Brooklyn nickelodeon in 1904 As the new owner with an empty house Fox hired a coin manipulator and a barker to attract patrons into the dark 146seat theatre Once audiences adequately understood what moving pictures were live acts were dispensed with More nickelodeons were opened and he became a successful film exhibitor He then won a long legal battle against Thomas Edisons Motion Pictures Patent Company ending the film trust and allowing him to start his own production company in 1913 Operations were consolidated into the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 Theda Bara and Tom Mix starred in successful pictures made at the Fox Hollywood studios and the profits from them and from the 1000 house Fox theatre chain paid for artistic projects like Sunrise 1926 for awards and critical acclaim In 1927 Fox acquired the American patent rights to the soundonfilm process developed by a Swiss firm Fox pioneered the widescreen film with The Big Trail 1930 Poised for the future of talkies he attempted to buy MGM just in time for 1929s stock market crash In 1930 Fox was forced out of his company after a federal antitrust investigation His version is told in 1933 Upton Sinclairs book Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox In 1936 a year after Darryl F Zanucks 20th Century Pictures merged with Fox Films Fox bribed a judge during the liquidation of his holdings in bankruptcy proceedings His sentence a year in prison began in 1941 Paroled in 1943 he was a pariah in Hollywood Though secure from his many patent holdings the industry for which he had been so visionary was closed to him A virtual pariah at the time of his death no industry representative came to eulogize at his funeral