Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1942)

44 MOTION PICTURE HERALD February 7, 1942 P. L Waters, who sold First Films. Dies Started Exchange in 1897 with Norman C. Raff; Later Headed Triangle Percival Lee Waters, known to the motion picture industry more familiarly as Percy Waters, died at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York last Saturday. He had been in failing health for several years. He was 74 years old. Mr. Waters was among the few and real founders of the motion picture industry. His first connection was in the service of the firm of Raff & Gammon, which in 1894 introduced the motion picture to the world and Broadway in the peep show Edison Kinetoscope, and subsequently in 1896 to the screen with the Armat Vitascope, first competent projector. Probably the first of all film exchanges was established by Mr. Waters, in association with Edson Raff, step-son of the late Norman C. Raff, of Raff and Gammon, in 1897-8. Mr. Waters left the motion picture and New York after that and returned in 1901. He discovered the preparations for the memorable Tammany campaign of that year. He was a Republican and he had a notion that the films could be used to draw street crowds. He waited at Republican headquarters for three days and did not get a hearing. He went into a Fourteenth street caravansarie to wet down his impatience and met a Tammany man who observed: "Percy, you're playing with the wrong outfit. Come with me and see the Chief." So it happened that Mr. Waters and Richard Croker went into conference. Received Tammany Contract When Mr. Waters emerged he had an unprecedented contract for a hundred projection machines, operators and films, to cover the Tammany speaker's stands. The Edison plant went into a twenty-fourhour schedule to make the machines and Percy Waters set up a training school for operators, taking any sort of manpower he could collect. He got into a special sort of tangle by drafting the elevator men employed in the Edison offices in Fifth Avenue. Mr. Waters got 80 machines into service for Tammany. One of them was located in the second floor over Charlie Murphy's saloon in East 21st Street. The operator dropped a cigar into the film bag — there were no take-up reels then — and burned the front off Mr. Murphy's saloon. Tammany lost that election. Mr. Waters had as a profit the biggest single stock of projection machines in the world on his hands. He cut the price from $125 to $85 and scattered them over the world, considerably accelerating the dissemination of the motion picture. In that campaign, by the way, New York saw the rise of William Travers Jerome, anti-Tammany, then a justice of the court of special sessions, destined to the Thaw case in years to come and ultimately to the presidency of the Technicolor film project, then long in the future. Mr. Waters' renewed motion picture ac PERCIVAL LEE WATERS tivities brought him presently into intimate relation with Jeremiah J. Kennedy, the ironhanded boss of Biograph and the Motion Picture Patents Company and its subsidiary and marketing arm, the General Film Company. When Mr. Kennedy fell out with the Patents Company and its curious internecine quarrels and stupidities, he decided to see what might be done about taking over the film business and formed the Kinetograph Company, in which Mr. Waters was his chief lieutenant. That came to nothing, but Mr. Waters acquired status as an executive. Then the Triangle Film Corporation, a promotion of 1915, came to grief and reorganization, at the end of Harry E. Aitken's Griffith-Ince-Sennett project, Mr. Waters was chosen to take over. He liquidated. Present at Hays Dinner For the while, though, it was not known as a liquidation, and one discovers that when Charles C. Pettijohn was in 1919 engaged in his arrangements to introduce his confrere from Indiana, Will H. Hays, to the cinema, Mr. Waters was one of the "who's who" guests invited to that luncheon at the Claridge May 5, to meet him. Just to be remembering, the other guests were William Fox, Saul Rogers, Robert H. Cochrane, Gabriel Hess, Samuel Goldfish and Harry Berman. December 2, 1921, two years later, the luncheon bore fruit with a roundrobin inviting Mr. Hays, then postmaster general in the Harding cabinet, to head a trade association signed by the leaders of the industry and yet among them, Percy L. Waters. Triangle faded fast away and Mr. Waters was not to be heard of again in the major circles of the screen. His last and declining years were spent in an emeritus connection with the Wilmer & Vincent circuit. Mr. Waters is survived by a sister, Mrs. E. A. Park, resident at the Hotel Wolcott, New York, where he lived in his later years. He was born in Hagerstown, Md. Maurice M. Davis Dies in Montreal Maurice M. Davis, 48, a motion picture figure in Montreal for many years, died Sunday, February 1st, at the Jewish General Hospital in that city. He was supervisor of the Amherst and Belmont theatres for United Amusements. A native of London, Mr. Davis went to Montreal about 25 years ago. Starting with Malone Enterprises, he later formed Davis Amusements. He was associated with Equity Pictures and Regal Films. Surviving are his wife, two sons, and his mother. William Daly, Film Exhibitor, Dies Funeral services for William J. Daly, 75, an exhibitor for many years, who died Sunday, February 1st, were held Wednesday at the Sacred Heart Church in Bayside, Long Island. Mr. Daly had been associated with the William Morris theatrical agency in New York for a number of years. He became an exhibitor in the nickelodeon era. During the last ten years he had been with the Skouras circuit. Surviving are a widow, two sisters and two daughters. Taylor, "Voice of Experience," Dies Marion Sayle Taylor, radio's "Voice of Experience,' who gave listeners and studio audiences advice on domestic and marital problems, died of a heart attack in Hollywood Sunday, February 1st. He was 52 years old. The background of the "Voice of Experience" included lectures on the Chautauqua circuit and a varied career as an organist, school superintendent, lecturer on sex problems, health department employee and a student of juvenile delinquency. In 1928, Mr. Taylor originated the radio program which brought him his fame. His third wife, Mrs. Mildred Taylor, survives. David C. Teague David C. Teague, 29 years old, a member of the Columbia Broadcasting System's publicity department in New York, was found dead in his home, Monday, February 2nd. A former newspaper man, associated with the Chicago Times, Mr. Teague had been with CBS six months. Surviving is his wife. William E. Garrett William E. Garrett, aged 64, who was engaged in the theatre and amusement business at Greensboro, N. C., for a number of years, died Thursday, January 29th, at a local hospital after a brief illness. He is survived by his widow and two children. Paul T. Stockdale Paul T. Stockdale, 45, production manager of Ross Roy, Inc., in Detroit, producers of sound slides, died in that city Wednesday, January 28th. He is survived by his widow. Thomas W. Stevens Thomas W. Stevens, 62, dramatist and head of the dramatic arts department of the University of Arizona, died Friday, January 30th, at his home in Tucson, Ariz. William H. Cline William H. Cline, 73, formerly an executive of the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles, died on January 23d at his home. Funeral services were held on January 26th. He is survived by three brothers. Stephen L. Burwell Stephen L. Burwell, 63-year-old chief of amusement tax division of the Mississippi state tax commission, died at a Jackson hospital following a week's illness, January 27th.