Picturegoer (1922)

36 THE PICTUR&GOE-R JULY 1922 3&RQMANCE iamfc'% ^.i! William Fox and his daughters. II i tli am Vox. At work in his garden. The romance of big business " is not a new phrase. Mul never has it been more aptly applied than to the career of William Fox and his present relation to the motion-picture industry. Denied in his boyhood all the advantages commonly associated with preparation for big business — that is, all save a sound brain and keen intelligence to direct it he has risen steadily from most humble beginnings to a singularly enviable position. William Fox, President of Fox Film Corporation, is a product of the famed lower Fast Side of New York. His early childhood was like that of his companions ; but lurking in his young mind was an unsuspected ambition and artistic sense. His parents were poor in worldly goods. He was forced from grammar school into the ranks of wage-earners, sacrificing his cherished hope for high school and college. He went to work at small wages in a cloth-sponging establishment on the lower Fast Side. He was foreman of the shop before he was twenty-one, later was the manager, and became the owner before reaching the age of twenty-five. The business prospered. " Penny Arcades," nearly all located in stores awaiting permanent rental, were very popular about this time. The business of public entertainment long had appealed to the imagination of young Fox. Having accumulated a modest capital, he determined to acquire a penny arcade. He heard of one for sale in Brooklyn. He bought it. and, adopting novel exploitation methods, quickly" had it on a paying basis. Encouraged by this experience, he took over two more penny arcades, and with equal success. Mr. Fox soon thereafter decided that his life-work was to lie in the amusement field. He leased various theatres and musichalls. Business boomed under his keen judgment and progressive methods. In his music-halls William Fox had already presented motion pictures — then a comparatively crude product — as a feature of his programmes. He noted the growing popularity of pictures, and his foresight told him they had come to stay. In 1913, with his faith confirmed, he determined •on a policy of more pictures and better ones. He would become a producer as well as a distributor and exhibitor. The first picture produced by Fox was Life's Shop Window, from the book by Victoria Cross. It was made at the Eclair Studio in Port Lee, N.J. Next came a remarkable spectacular production, with Annette Kellerman, the noted water nymph, heading the big cast. To make this picture, the company was sent to the island of Jamaica. The production cost of the work exceeded half a million dollars — the most expensive screen output on record at the time. Mr. Fox was one of the first producers to realise, in the earlier period of screen entertainment, that the development of motion pictures must ultimately win to their service leading artistes of the speaking stage, despite the prejudice then existing among these against the film as an " interloper." He soon began to have signatures of distinguished artistes on contracts with his company. A few of these included William Farnum, Dustin Farnum, Pearl White, Bertha Kalish, Vivian Martin, William Russell, Virginia Pearson, Jewel Carmen, »-?r*-i Valeska Suratt, Wilton Lackaye, Nance O'Neil, Robert Mantell, Anna Q. Nilsson. As to personality. William Foxis a modest, kindly man — -slow to make intimate friendships, but holding as with bonds of steel those friends he admits to intimacy. A willing listener, he can talk forcefully, and to the point, when the time arrives for talk. He wastes no words, and his confidence in his own judgment, after due weighing of arguments, is absolute.