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MOTION PICTURE HERALD
June 13, 1931
GEORGE KLEINfS DEATH REMOVES ABLE FOUNDER OF FILM BUSINESS
World's Largest Dealer in Film in First Decade of Dies After Year's Illness — Pioneered for Education Progress
Industry
By TERRY RAMSAYE
George Kleine, a leader among the founders of the business institution of the motion picture, died at midnight Monday, in New York. The funeral was held Thursday.
Mr. Kleine had been ill for more than a year. The end came at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Helen Bold, 64 East 86th street. His wife. Beatrice Oldfield Kleine, died here in 1923. He is survived by only his daughter and a sister, Mrs. J. J. Thompson of Bloomfield, N. J.
Mr. Kleine was born February 18, 1863 ======^^^^^=^=^=^^=
in New York, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Kleine. He was educated in the city and was graduated from the College of the City of New York in the class of 1882.
The elder Kleine was engaged in the optical and scientific instrument business and the son took up the same pursuit, establishing the Kleine Optical Company at State and Randolph streets in Chicago, an address which in years to come was a local center of motion picture activities and influence.
In 1895-6 Edwin Hill Amet, a Waukegan, 111., inventor, engaged in the making of a projection machine, with the collaboration and financial support of George K. Spoor. The machine was brought to the attention of Mr. Kleine, while under development, and was christened by him the "Magnoscope." This machine did not achieve commercial success but it became the inspirational source of considerable motion picture activity and development of far reaching influence in the industry.
Became Largest Dealer
The Kleine Optical Company, already in contact with the amusement business through dealing in limelight illuminations, stereopticons and like devices, launched into the budding motion picture industry handling films and equipments. Mr. Kleine was an aggressive merchandiser and organizer and became the world's largest dealer in motion picture films in the first decade of the screen. He became the American distributing agent for all of the major European producers, and also made strong personal and commercial ties with Thomas A. Edison's picture production interests on the one hand and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company on the other.
The equipment trade of today bears the impress of Mr. Kleine's influence in the widely known Simplex projector, which was born of the Edengraph, invented by Frank Cannock, a Scotch mechanic in the service of the Eden Musee in Twenty-third street. Cannock developed the machine, which later became the Simplex, under the patronage of Mr. Kleine, but ultimately was detached from the picture because between the Scotchman's demand for microscopic precision and his penchant for re-inventing the machine while it was in work, production was unsatisfactory.
Mr. Kleine's first sally into production was with the formation of the once-famous
Kalem Company of New York in 1907, which took its name from the initials of the three participants, Kleine, Long and Marion. Mr. Kleine's participation, as he once humorously remarked, consisted of loaning his credit to the new company for the price of a camera. Kalem, like the other pioneers of the period, became vastly prosperous with the swift rise of the nickelodeon theatres which began in 1905 and reached a tremendous climax about 1911. Mr. Kleine, however, being engaged in many and larger enterprises, sold his interest in Kalem for the profits on one week's operation, which when the bookkeepers got the total was just $5,000.
Through the days of the wars of the early movie kings, Mr. Kleine was a strong influence toward a clarification of the terrific tangles and problems of the industry, and
George Kleine occupied a position by himself in the motion picture industry and was an important contributor to its progress in the earlier days, not only directly but by the influence of Ins views on the proper direction of development.
JEREMIAH J. KENNEDY.
The motion picture indttstry owes to the late George Kleine a debt of esteem. He brought to the business, and its inception, a fine sense of honor. He was a cultured gentleman, a man of great ability. His contribution to the motion picture is written large in its annals.
WILL H. HAYS.
George Kleine was a valid pioneer. It ivas through his enthusiasm and effort that the motion picture industry was first brought from chaos to an organized institution. I had the privilege of knounng his social and domestic life aside from our association in business, and a more noble, ynore generous and more honorable man never held the high esteem of all who enjoyed his acquaintance.
GEORGE K. SPOOR.
operating largely behind the scenes became the chief instrument of peace which resulted in an Edison-Biograph peace and the formation of the Motion Picture Patents Company in December of 1908.
Having the friendship and confidence of Mr. Edison and of Jeremiah J. Kennedy and Henry Norton Marvin of Biograph from the opposing battle lines, Mr. Kleine's plans, influence and counsel entered more importantly into the constructive movements of the period than is generally known in this age of the motion picture. With his extensive experience in matters of distribution he was also a large factor in the background of plans and operation of the General Film Company which became the merchandising arm of the Patents Company federation of producers.
In this period the Chicago trio, George Kleine, George K. Spoor and Colonel William N. Selig, was a unit of large power in the industry.
Had Larger Vision
Mr. Kleine was among the first to enjoy a vision of the motion picture as the instrument of a business far greater in scope and scale than the nickelodeon of the early General Film days promised. His extensive European connections kept him decidedly abreast of the more pretentious progress in the art abroad.
One of Mr. Kleine's larger services to the motion picture industry relates to a tale of the tariff and the days of the Wilson administration in Washington, which can not be written yet for many a year, because of the personages of high and low degree involved. But it can be here recorded now that Mr. Kleine's eleventh hour intervention in a star chamber session in Washington {Continued on page 43)