Adolph Zukor was born in Ricse, Zemplén county, in 1873. His father, Jákob Czucker, ran a grocery store in the village and cultivated the land, but following an accident he died relatively early. The barely one-year-old Adolf and his older brother Artúr remained with their mother, Háni Liebermann, who was unable to come to terms with her husband’s death and she, too, passed away just a few years later. At this point, the sibling of their mother, who came from a rabbi family, took on the care of the two children. They moved to Mátészalka and completed elementary school there. Artúr was an excellent student and immediately marked out for a life as a rabbi whereas Adolf was less interested in his studies. At the age of 12 he served as an apprentice in a shop in Abaújszántó and in the meantime he attended night school twice a week. “All the while, letters were coming to the village from emigrants to America. These, speaking glowingly of freedom and opportunities, were passed from hand to hand. I read them along with such books about America as were available. Whenever someone returned for a visit I was quick with questions about that faraway and promising land. At fourteen I had definitely made up my mind to go” he wrote later in his autobiography.¹

As one can see from the quote, Zukor’s decision was by no means unique because thousands left the region during the 1880s, indeed, the movement was both ways and descriptions given by those returning home painted an enticing picture of the distant continent. During this period the focal point of emigration from Europe to America gradually shifted from areas in Western Europe to Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, naturally including mass migration from Hungary. Those arriving in the United States in several waves were called ‘new immigrants’ and they caused a level of consternation in that the ethnic composition of the population differed from earlier immigrants. According to the registers of European ports, between 1871 and 1913 some two million people sailed from Hungary, and slightly more than 1.8 million landed in the United States. In her research, Julianna Puskás notes that it is necessary to deduct the number of those travelling back and forth between the two continents, thus the true figure may be assumed at approximately 1.3 to 1.35 million.²

Between 1880 and 1889, at the time Zukor set off, the American immigration authority registered 109,992 people from Hungary. These individuals were typically economic migrants with a low level of education who came to the New World to find work as labourers and settlers. Only in a few instances, through extreme ambition and talent, did they achieve glittering careers. The story of Zukor can thus be seen as both typical and extraordinary: he conformed to the trend at the time and exploded its limitations to become a self-made man by leveraging to the maximum his own capabilities and the given opportunities.

In 1888, at the age of just 15, Zukor set off into the unknown, but first he had to reach his brother who at the time was studying at university in Berlin. With Artúr’s help he purchased a ticket for a steamship bound for America and, according to legend, he took with him just a few dollars carefully sewn into his waistcoat pocket. “No sooner did I put my foot on American soil than I was a newborn person. […] am not using an empty phrase in saying that I felt the freedom in the air” he remembered later.³

In New York, as yet another anonymous immigrant, he initially found things very tough. He started work in a soda bottling plant and was then taken on by a fur merchant where he quickly learned the trade. The 1893 Chicago World Exhibition attracted many enterprising young people including Zukor who decided to try his luck in the Midwest. Here, too, the furrier business thrived and soon the Novelty Fur Company, an enterprise he established, was employing 20-30 people. By this time he was considered a well-to-do businessman, yet it was not in the fashion industry that he discovered his true vocation but instead in the film business. In this he was not alone among his colleagues following a similar path because Samuel Goldwyn, one of the founders of MGM, originally started out selling gloves, Louis B. Mayer ran a second-hand shop and Carl Laemmle a clothing emporium in Wisconsin, the Warners began in a shoe shop and another Hungarian-born studio mogul, William Fox, also dealt in textiles for a while.⁴

Film producer from a cinema pioneer

At the turn of the century, motion pictures ranked as the new discovery and Zukor initially came across cinema not in projected form but rather in places of entertainment popular at the time known as penny arcades. By peering into machines set up in these arcades, it was possible to watch a rapidly revolving series of still photographs that made up short motion sequences. In 1903, Zukor entered the industry by teaming up with David Warfield and Marcus Loew to open their own penny arcade called the Automatic Vaudeville Theatre in Manhattan. It was an instant success and by adding further theatres they were soon operating an entire network.

Zukor was always developing new features and he quickly realized that the true secret to the success of motion pictures lay in transforming it from a one-person entertainment into a communal experience. Since screenings were becoming more and more popular, he also moved in this direction and proved himself receptive to even the most innovative ideas. His first motion picture theatre, Crystal Hall, was named after the glass staircase leading up to the foyer behind which water cascaded over coloured lights.

Another feature was a particular genre of early silent movies, the so-called phantom ride, which in effect was footage taken from a moving vehicle.⁵ Audiences were amazed by the dynamic motion pictures lasting just a few minutes, giving the experience of travel and discovery. The expression ‘phantom’ refers on the one hand to the otherwise invisible aspect of the person travelling on the vehicle, and on the other hand to the journey in itself being a kind of illusion. The most dramatic solution was patented by engineer George C. Hale in 1904 and was demonstrated at the world exhibition organized in St. Louis. Hale’s Tours was an early simulator in which instead of a traditional cinema interior, a mock railway carriage was built in which films were then projected. In order to enhance the experience, during the performance machinery rattled the auditorium, the ‘train’ whistled and there were other sound effects. Zukor made Hale’s Tours famous by bringing it to New York, where up to 60 passengers could be seated in the virtual carriage at one time. However, these shows proved fashionable for just a short time because viewers were increasingly demanding dramatic, gripping stories.

View from an Engine Front – Barnstaple (1898, BFI National Archive)

During this time a war was raging between a few ambitious, independent market players, Zukor being one of them, and Thomas Edison, who went to extraordinary lengths to monopolize the dynamically developing film industry. Under Edison’s leadership, in 1908 the Motion Picture Patents Company uniting several smaller companies was established. It was commonly known as the Edison Trust. The Trust intended to use technological standards as a means of controlling who had access to film and projection rights, and anyone outside their circle was ruthlessly shut off from all opportunities. The independents tried to break their grip using various methods and it was largely due to this that they turned not towards the east coast ruled by the Trust but instead to the Pacific west coast, thereby sparking the growth of Hollywood. In 1915, the activity of the Trust was finally banned by the federal court, which declared free competition in the film industry in the spirit of the Sherman Antitrust Act. It was during these years that Zukor developed the method that made him so successful later on. He realized that the most effective solution was to unite the sector vertically and control film production, distribution and film screening, that is, the cinemas. This was not in breach of the antitrust law but instead stabilized the entire production and supply chain, which he reinforced with finetuned solutions such as block booking, where he sold cinemas films not individually but in packages.

In 1912, Zukor wrote himself into film history with a bold decision when he purchased the American distribution rights to the French film Queen Elizabeth (Les amours de la reine Élisabeth) from producer Louis Mercaton for USD 40,000. Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous European actress of the age, played the title role in the 40-minute film. The premiere staged in the New York Lyceum Theatre was a huge success and it proved two things: audiences demanded longer, even full-length fiction feature films, and productions using quality material and starring top actors were in no way inferior to theatre that was at the time generally considered a far superior standard of entertainment than cinema. In this spirit, Zukor named his distribution enterprise the Famous Players Film Company and he heralded his belief with the pithy line: ‘Famous Players in Famous Plays’.

Star-maker

From distribution it was just a few steps to production, and Zukor took these steps very quickly. He rented a vacant armoury at 26th Street Manhattan and turned it into a studio (this is the still operating Chelsea Studios), then shot his first film as a genuine producer. He contracted the best crew he could get for The Prisoner of Zenda (1913). For example, he chose Edwin S. Porter (The Great Train Robbery) as director, and Hugh Ford. The adventure story carries the viewer off to Eastern Europe, or more precisely, to the fictional kingdom of Ruritania, where a conspiracy is underway against the ruler. The lead part was played by James K. Hackett, a famous Broadway star, and Zukor made every effort to win over more big names for his films. Still, his biggest catch was the recently discovered talent, the charming Mary Pickford, who played innocent and endearing blondes for two full decades as America’s number one favourite film star. Pickford’s image of innocence was sustained by following a strict set of criteria. She was not permitted to smoke, she could only drink alcohol occasionally, and she was forbidden from using conspicuous makeup. In his autobiography, Zukor is open about the heavy hand with which the early stars were controlled in the interest of their continued success: “While Mary was not asked to appear in curls and pinafore off the screen, we did, frankly, want her to seem a teenager. It was understandable that Mary wished to dress her age and in the height of fashion. But neither of us could afford it. As a customary member of her entourage on personal appearances, I cast an appraising eye, I must confess, on her mode of dress.”⁶

In 1915, fire broke out at the Famous Players studio and the highly flammable nitro film and equipment were destroyed in seconds. Perhaps in the hope of making a quick comeback, Zukor’s company merged with Jesse L. Lasky’s company (1916) and continued as Famous Players-Lasky. The third related company, Paramount, was founded by William Hodkinson in 1914 with film distribution as its original profile. The company was highly effective in distributing movies even to distant points of the country so it appeared obvious that the perfect method for creating the Zukor-type vertical concept was the full incorporation of Paramount. This is why they bought out Hodkinson in 1916 and acquired the distributor’s resources, which transformed them into a critical factor in the industry. In the mid-1910s, Lasky owned a small plot in Hollywood he used as a set for shooting films, acquired with the help of Cecil B. DeMille. However, by 1926 they had long grown out of these premises so after buying another real estate they started on a large-scale Hollywood studio development. Although Zukor is generally associated with Hollywood, he himself preferred the east coast. He maintained his base in New York and only rarely visited Hollywood, where he commissioned B. P. Schulberg to oversee the work. From 1 April 1927 the company was called Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, and from 1930 Paramount Public Corporation.

In its heyday Paramount employed the biggest stars. Indeed, the stars in the logo originally represented individual star actors contracted to Paramount. They included Marguerite Clark, Pauline Frederick, William Farnum, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino and Pola Negri. This is also where the Hopalong Cassidy westerns starring William Boyd were made. As head of studio, Zukor was producer of around 80 movies between 1913 and 1930.

During this period the most critically acclaimed film was the First World War romantic war drama Wings (d: William A. Wellman, 1927), featuring Clara Bow, Charles Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. The plot revolves around combat pilots in a romantic rivalry over a woman. The work takes its place in film history because it won two prizes at the first Oscar awards ceremony (at that time it was not called the Oscar but officially the prize of the American Film Academy). It collected the Academy Award for Outstanding Picture and Roy Pomeroy won the prize for Best Engineering Effects, which were particularly spectacular in the air-combat scenes. It is interesting to note that in the same year another Hungarian studio boss, William Fox, also won an Academy Award for best film, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (d: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1927) in the Best Unique and Artistic Production category. Furthermore, the Wings competitor 7th Heaven (d: Frank Borzage, 1927) was also a Fox film, and for Paramount film The Last Command (d: Josef von Sternberg, 1928) the scriptwriter Lajos Bíró was nominated in the Best Writing, Original Story category.

As well as continuous production activities, Paramount also operated several hundred cinemas across the United States. The 33-floor Art Deco Paramount Building opened in New York, on a plot purchased at the corner of Broadway and 43rd Street, in 1926. It became one of the iconic structures of the city. Between 1927-1957, the company also produced its own newsreels, footage of which was shown in numerous countries in the interwar period including in the Hungarian World Newsreels.

Risky interview footage over New York's skyscrapers Magyar Világhíradó 407/7. (December 1931)

Success never went to Zukor’s head; his image developed over many years was of a tough and yet admired figure of the film industry. He was short in stature and moved softly, as a consequence of which he frequently surprised (and not always in a positive sense) his colleagues, and despite learning English he continued to speak with a strong Hungarian accent to the end of his life. He lived a puritan and healthy life, he frequently took long walks at night and he insisted on the beneficial effects of an afternoon nap, which by his own admission he copied from Edison. With a cheerful but reserved manner and fully aware of his power, he attained a formidable reputation. He was not an artist but first and foremost a talented businessman who approached every area of the film industry accordingly.

– This excerpt comes from the obituary written by Albin Krebs in the New York Times. Zukor’s motto, “The Public Is Never Wrong”, neatly sums up his philosophy.

In 1897, Zukor married Lottie Kaufman, the daughter of a North Dakota Hungarian-Jewish settler family. Their relationship was deep and long-lasting; his wife provided a warm and loving family environment for her husband. They had two children, Eugene J. Zukor, who went on to work for Paramount, and Mildred Zukor, who later became the wife of Arthur Loew, son of Marcus Loew. Lottie’s brother, Albert Kaufman, also worked at Paramount, thus family ties strengthened the business dealings.

A glance in Europe’s direction

Around 1920, Paramount made ever-greater efforts to assert its interests outside America. The focus was primarily on Central and Eastern Europe where they tried to attract talent and win over audiences to American movies. For example, an interesting document illustrating that Hungarian filmmakers closely followed the rise of the studio founder and sometimes tried to establish contact with him dates from this period. On 16 June 1920, Sándor Korda, or as he became later, Sir Alexander Korda, wrote a letter from Vienna to Zukor in New York in which he addresses him in words of the greatest respect.⁸ The then 20-year-old Korda sketches out his career and extensive experience, and then politely asks the producer for a job. He writes that he would be willing to send him a copy of his latest work and promises, if necessary, to fast-track his English language skills. The cordial relationship maintained with his compatriots naturally did not stop Zukor from working against them when necessary. For example, the other legendary director of the age, Mihály Kertész (later Michael Curtiz), who was then working in Vienna, came out the loser when Zukor acquired the American rights to The Moon of Israel (Die Sklavenkönigin, 1924), which was then shelved in order to maintain the competitive edge for the blockbuster Paramount film The Ten Commandments (d: Cecil B. DeMille, 1924) that was then in the works and covered a similar subject.⁹

Paramount’s greatest rival was the German UFA. The Berlin-based, German-American joint venture Europäische Film AG (EFA) was established in 1921 in order to take up the fight against UFA.¹⁰ Ernst Lubitsch and Joe May were just two of several major figures to join the company, although the enterprise collapsed in under a year because although it would have been much cheaper to produce films in Germany, revenue generated in the hyperinflated Papiermark could not be taken out of the country in dollars. The second, more successful European manoeuvre took place in 1925 when the major American studios found themselves fighting to come to the aid of UFA that had got itself into financial difficulties, in exchange for asserting their own interests. In December 1925, the Parufamet agreement signed by Paramount, MGM and UFA allowed screening of American-made films in UFA cinemas in return for financial loans. Thus in the 1920s Paramount expanded significantly in Europe. It opened its own cinemas in London and Paris, and it is perhaps no coincidence that its founder reappeared in person in his homeland at this time.

From the Shepherd’s Well to business

Zukor first returned to Hungary in 1923, and then again in 1925 and 1927. On 7 May 1927, he visited his birthplace in Ricse with his brother Artúr, his brother-in-law Albert Kaufman, and his colleagues Ike Blumenthal, Imre Roboz and the editor of Színházi Élet Sándor Incze. Incze, a great PR specialist, carefully fabricated the almost fairy tale-like story of the ‘Ricse orphan’. In his report on the trip he painted a romantic picture of the film mogul indulging in nostalgia on the bank of the Tisza river.¹¹ Zukor first went to the house where he was born, which by then was inhabited by his nephew. Incze did not omit to mention that the mill, church and school were built from the millionaire’s donations. Zukor visited the grave of his parents before a relative, owner of a café in Sátoraljaújhely, prepared lunch including Zukor’s favourites, Liptauer cottage cheese spread, pancakes and Tokaj wine. In the meantime, his lawyer Dr. Béla Weiszburg received petitioners and carefully noted down their wishes. The trip had another yet another outcome because Zukor realized that the village had no secure source of drinking water, thus he decided to have an artesian well dug in a spot designated by the community. In October, Weiszburg submitted to the appropriate offices the application to start work on the well and it was completed the following year.¹² Above the well, one can see to this day a large sculpture by Aladár Gárdos depicting a shepherd leaning on his crook.

American film mogul Adolph Zukor, his wife and Ben Blumenthal in Budapest. Magyar Híradó 51/1. (February 1925)

Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount Film Studio, in Budapest. Magyar Híradó 168/1. (May 1927)

By this time, Paramount maintained a small network in Budapest built on reliable people with expertise in the entertainment industry. One of the key figures in this was Imre Roboz, who was equally at home in theatre and film environments. Roboz began his career as secretary of Projectograph, one of the first Hungarian film companies. He was an editor on the motion picture newsreel Mozgófénykép Híradó and in 1914 he was appointed director of Phönix Film Industry LTD (Phönix Filmipari Rt.) In 1921, Ben Blumenthal, who was in a business relationship with Paramount, bought the Budapest Comedy Theatre and named Imre Roboz to the post of director. Roboz lobbied extensively and skilfully on behalf of Paramount and conducted extensive business correspondence.¹³

It can be presumed that the foundations for Paramount’s subsidiary in Hungary, Paramount Film Distribution LTD (Paramount Filmforgalmi Rt.), were already laid by Zukor’s trip in 1927.¹⁴ The company was founded with starting equity of 150,000 Pengő on 6 March 1928. The directorial board comprised Ike Blumenthal (Ben Blumenthal’s brother), Gusztáv Schäfer, Dr. Béla Weiszburg, Graham Cecil John, and Lajos Földes who also acted as managing director. Around the time of the switch to talkies news kept popping up that Zukor intended to establish the “Hollywood of European small states” in Hungary, but at the very least become actively involved in the production of films in Hungarian.¹⁵ According to the plan, initially films would be shot in Paris, “but later on a second studio would be built in Budapest, where further versions of films would be made in Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Turkish and Greek. Naturally, it is as yet impossible to assess the significance of this huge undertaking, and if it succeeds, then Budapest will become the hub of sound cinema in Eastern Europe.”

Pursuing this matter, Zukor arrived in Hungary in spring 1930 where he met figures from the film industry and political elite during a glittering banquet in the function room of the Ritz. He appointed Imre Roboz to coordinate all tasks associated with the nascent studio and monitor remotely work being carried out in Paris. In the end, despite the grandiose plans Paramount made only two Hungarian-language films, The Laughing Lady (A kacagó asszony) and Doctor’s Secret (Az orvos titka), both directed by the director of the Comedy Theatre, Tibor Hegedűs, and starring Gizi Bajor, in 1930. Both stories were remakes of American productions and unfortunately both have been lost. Since the films flopped and in the meantime the German Tobis-Klang audio system was introduced in Hungary instead of the American Western Electric, Paramount abandoned all further plans for making movies in Hungarian.

Distribution, however, continued to operate with Paramount Film Distribution LTD’s permanent headquarters being set up at Rákóczi út 59. in Budapest. The office even had its own screening room. In 1936, the highly experienced Lajos Földes was transferred to the faraway Dutch East Indies colony of Batavia (today, Jakarta in Indonesia), where he represented Paramount for 18 months. His seat in Hungary went to Miklós Palugyay. However, during the war years room for manoeuvre became increasingly restricted and communications broke down. A host of American studios pulled out of Berlin in the late 1930s, to be followed by withdrawals from the Central European region. Many members of staff fled. It is likely that Imre Roboz would have received a warm welcome at Paramount in the United States but he chose to remain and was murdered by Hungarian fascists in the winter of 1944-45. Even though Paramount Film Distribution LTD made a brief reappearance after the Second World War, by then it was unable to establish any influence on the market and the final references to it date from 1946.

From sound films to 3D

The Great Depression did not spare Paramount and its finances were badly hit in 1932. The studio’s situation was finally stabilized by the middle of the decade but it required major restructuring and the loss of many jobs, including that of Lasky. Zukor, the great survivor, kept his position but with a different status. In 1936, Barney Balaban became president and Zukor chairman of the board. In 1948 the till then successful operating system had to be scrapped because a court ruling meant film studios were no longer allowed to own cinema chains. Accordingly, Paramount outsourced its network of 1,500 movie theatres. The elderly but still active Zukor rapidly adjusted to the changed circumstances and showed interest in all innovations. He recognized the opportunities inherent in television and experimented with wide-screen techniques and stereoscopic screening. In 1953, in a speech held on his 80th birthday, he announced that 3D film was the future. At that time it was considered a bigger innovation than talkies were in their day. He only retired in 1959 but he held the title of honorary president of Paramount until his death.

Remembering Zukor

Zukor passed away in his sleep at the age of 103 on 10 June 1976. He was buried in the Hastings-on-Hudson cemetery, New York State. The first biography of him was published very early, in 1928, with the title The House That Shadows Built (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran), then his autobiography was also released in 1953, as the reminiscences of the distinguished wise old man of the profession, under the title The Public Is Never Wrong: My 50 Years in the Picture Industry (New York: G. P. Putnam), which also came out in Hungarian in 2020. His oeuvre was recognized with an Oscar in 1949 and in 1960 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1617 Vine Street). The American film profession organized a grand party to celebrate his 100th birthday.
His memory is preserved in his birthplace through the Zukor Adolf Cultural House and Zukor Csárda (Inn), and the Zukor Adolf Cinema in Mátészaka.

A memorial plaque was unveiled in Ricse in 2012, and later on in Mátészalka. First prize of the CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival is called the Zukor Adolf Prize.

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