The story of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (1919)

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Almost over night the world's ideas about the motion picture were turned topsy-turvy, and the first step toward the future had been made. A few years later, another man with vision and ability entered this new business, and built the Lasky studio. This was Jesse L. Lasky. He brought to his new field a knowledge of the stage and of the public, and an experience in production. A few years later, the Lasky Company joined with Famous Players, forming the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. Five years ago, the Lasky studio at Hollywood, California, occupied the building which, three months ago, was too small for the properties of the present studio. The properties were moved out of what was once the entire studio, and the original building stands there almost lost in the maze of stages and laboratories. Today the Lasky studio has four stages, covering a floor space of 47,000 square feet. The studio lots cover ten acres. The studio also owns a ranch of 1200 acres, where exteriors are taken. And then there are the gigantic laboratories, mills, manufactories of all kinds. Besides the Lasky studio, the company also maintains the Morosco studio in Hollywood; a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey; and one on Fifty-sixth Street, New York. The Morosco studio is managed by Charles E. Eyton, and the Fort Lee and Fifty-sixth Street studios by J. N. Naulty. These four studios are, however, only a part of the whole production organization, which includes the affiliated producers already listed. That is how the industry has grown in seven years, from the brain of Adolph Zukor. A big factor in the growth of the Lasky Company, and of the industry, was Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, a dramatist and producer of renown, saw possibilities in the new motion picture which the stage could never offer. To take this new and untried medium, and mold it into the form of life, and color it with the color of Charles Ray in "The Girl Dodger," Ince Above ] William S. Hart in "Branding Broadway' Below) William S. Hart Studio Dorothy Dalton in "Extravagance," Ince Enid Bennett in "Happy Tho' Married," Ince 1 '7 ] Thomas H. luce's "The False Faces' with Henrv B. Wathall