Hungarian-American film producer (1879-1952)
William Fox
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/William_Fox_1921.jpg/220px-William_Fox_1921.jpg) William Fox in 1921
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Born
| Vilmos Fuchs
(
1879-01-01
)
January 1, 1879
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Died
| May 8, 1952
(1952-05-08)
(aged 73)
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Resting place
| Salem Fields Cemetery, Brooklyn
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Occupation
| Entrepreneur
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Spouse(s)
|
Eva Leo
(
m.
1899;
"his death" is deprecated; use "died" instead.
1952)
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Children
| 2
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Parents
| - Michael Fuchs (father)
- Hannah Fried (mother)
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William Fox
[1]
(born
Wilhelm Fuchs
;
[2]
January 1, 1879 ? May 8, 1952)
[3]
was a
Hungarian-American
motion picture
executive who founded the
Fox Film Corporation
in 1915 and the
Fox West Coast Theatres
chain in the 1920s. Although he lost control of his movie businesses in 1930, his name was used by
20th Century Fox
and continues to be used in the trademarks of the present-day
Fox Corporation
, including the
Fox Broadcasting Company
,
Fox News
, and
Fox Sports
.
Early life
Fox was born in
Tolcsva
,
Hungary
[4]
and originally named Vilmos Fuchs.
[5]
His parents, Michael Fuchs
[2]
and Hannah Fried, were both
Hungarian Jews
.
[6]
[7]
The family immigrated to the United States when William was nine months old and settled in New York City, where they had twelve more children, of whom only six survived. William once sold candy
[8]
in
Central Park
, worked as a newsboy, and worked in the fur and garment industry as a youth.
Film career
In 1900, Fox started his own company, which he sold in 1904 to purchase his first
nickelodeon
. Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, he concentrated on acquiring and building theaters. Beginning in 1914, New Jersey-based Fox bought films outright from the Balboa Amusement Producing Company in Long Beach, California, for distribution to his own theaters and then for rental to other theaters across the country. He formed the
Fox Film Corporation
on February 1, 1915, with insurance and banking money provided by the McCarter, Kuser and Usar families of Newark, New Jersey, and the small New Jersey investment house of Eisele and King. The company's first film studio was leased in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where many other early film studios were based at the beginning of the 20th century.
[6]
He now had the capital to acquire facilities and expand his production capacity.
In 1925?1926, Fox purchased the rights to the work of
Freeman Harrison Owens
, the U.S. rights to the
Tri-Ergon
system invented by three German inventors (Josef Engl (1893?1942), Hans Vogt (1890?1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889?1957)), and the work of
Theodore Case
to create the Fox
Movietone
sound-on-film
system, introduced in 1927 with the release of
F. W. Murnau
's
Sunrise
. Sound-on-film systems such as Movietone and
RCA Photophone
soon became the standard, and competing
sound-on-disc
technologies, such as
Warner Bros.
'
Vitaphone
, became obsolete. From 1928 to 1964,
Fox Movietone News
was one of the major
newsreel
series in the U.S., along with
The March of Time
(1935?1951) and
Universal Newsreel
(1929?1967).
Following the 1927 death of
Marcus Loew
, head of the parent company of rival studio
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, control of MGM passed to his longtime associate,
Nicholas Schenck
. Fox saw an opportunity to expand his empire, and in 1929, with Schenck's assent, bought the Loew family's MGM holdings, unbeknownst to studio bosses
Louis B. Mayer
and
Irving Thalberg
who were outraged, since, despite their high posts at MGM, they were not shareholders. Mayer used his strong political connections to persuade the
Justice Department
to sue Fox for violating federal
antitrust
laws. During this time, in the middle of 1929, Fox was badly hurt in an automobile accident. By the time he recovered, the
stock market crash
in October of 1929 had wiped out virtually his entire fortune, ending any chance of the Loews-Fox merger going through even if the Justice Department had approved it.
Fox lost control of his Fox Film Corporation in 1930 during a
hostile takeover
. In 1935, Fox Film Corporation would merge with
20th Century Pictures
, becoming 20th Century-Fox, which was later renamed "20th Century Fox" and, after the 2019 spin-off of Fox Corporation, "20th Century Studios." William Fox never had any involvement with the film studio that famously bore his name. A combination of the stock market crash, Fox's car accident injuries, and government antitrust action, forced him into a protracted seven-year legal battle to stave off
bankruptcy
. At his bankruptcy hearing in 1936, he attempted to
bribe
judge
John Warren Davis
and committed
perjury
. In 1943, Fox served a five month and seventeen day sentence on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice and defraud the United States, in connection with his bankruptcy.
[9]
After serving his time, Fox retired from the film business.
For many years, Fox resented the way that Wall Street had forced him from control of his company. In 1933, he collaborated with the writer
Upton Sinclair
on a book
Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox
in which Fox recounted his life, and stating his views on what he considered to be a large Wall Street conspiracy against him.
His death in 1952 at the age of 73 went largely unnoticed by the film industry; No one from Hollywood attended his funeral. Fox is interred at
Salem Fields Cemetery, Brooklyn
.
Fox personally oversaw the construction of many
Fox Theatres
in American cities including
Atlanta
,
Detroit
,
Oakland
,
San Francisco
and
San Diego
.
His companies had an estimated value of $300,000,000 and he personally owned 53 percent of Fox Film and 93 percent of the Fox Theaters.
[10]
Personal
Fox was married to Eva Leo (1881?1962)
[11]
and had two daughters.
References
- ^
"William Fox"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Retrieved
10 August
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Krefft, Vanda (2017).
The Man Who Made the Movies
. New York: HarperCollins.
ISBN
9780061136061
.
- ^
Szabo, Istvan (2004). Hames, Peter (ed.).
The Cinema of Central Europe
. London: Wallflower Press.
ISBN
1904764215
.
OCLC
57459159
.
- ^
"A 20th Century Fox is magyar alapitotta"
.
Nepszabadsag
(in Hungarian). 2008-12-10. Archived from
the original
on 2010-04-04
. Retrieved
2009-04-19
.
- ^
"Fried Fuchs" is give by Britannica, cited in
William Wellman, Jr.
(7 April 2015).
Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel
. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 184.
ISBN
978-1-101-87028-0
.
, and by
Adrian Room
in
Adrian Room (1 July 2010).
Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins, 5th ed
. McFarland. p. 183.
ISBN
978-0-7864-5763-2
.
- ^
a
b
Solomon, Aubrey (2011).
The Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935: A History and Filmography
. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.
ISBN
9780786462865
.
OCLC
690102781
.
- ^
"Twentieth Century Fox"
. Filmreference.com
. Retrieved
26 March
2010
.
- ^
Solomon, Aubrey (2016-03-31).
The Fox Film Corporation, 1915?1935: A History and Filmography
. Jefferson, North Carolina.
ISBN
978-1-4766-6600-6
.
OCLC
933438482
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
"William Fox Freed From Prison on Parole; Has Served 5 Months in Bankruptcy Case"
.
The New York Times
. 1943-05-04.
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
2020-01-18
.
- ^
Solomon, Aubrey (2016-03-31).
The Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935 : a history and filmography
. Jefferson, North Carolina.
ISBN
978-1-4766-6600-6
.
OCLC
933438482
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
"Ancestry.com"
.
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