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Paramount Pictures, which is about to swallow Warner Bros., evolved from the merger of two production companies that then took control of their distributor to create the most powerful studio of its day.

The twists and turns began May 8, 1912 when Adolph Zukor founded Famous Players in Famous Plays. Zukor had emigrated to New York from Hungary as a 16 year old orphan. He became wealthy in the fur business and in 1903 fate intervened when a cousin asked to borrow $3,000 to buy an arcade partnership share. Zukor agreed — and then opened his own arcade, which did big business with peep show machines running short films.

Zukor moved into the fledgling movie business because he believed people would lose interest in the novelty of short movie clips and would then embrace story-driven features. When Zukor learned who held the U.S. rights to the French bio-drama QUEEN ELIZABETH, starring legendary stage actress Sarah Bernhardt, he immediately licensed it for $35,000.

He premiered the 53 minute long QUEEN ELIZABETH July 12, 1912 at NYC’s Lyceum, a legitimate stage theatre. It was a major entertainment event that put Famous Players on the map. Zukor was right that longer movies would resonate with audiences.

Meanwhile, in 1913 movie pioneer Jesse Lasky in partnership with a new director (Cecil B. DeMille), an experienced director (Oscar Apfel) and a tough businessman (Sam Goldfish — later Goldwyn) formed The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co. Its first production, the 74 minute long romantic action drama THE SQUAW MAN, was the first feature filmed in Hollywood and was a big hit in cinemas, just as it had been as a play on Broadway.

Zukor & Lasky’s movies were released through Paramount Pictures, the first U.S. national distributor. Paramount was formed by Utah theatre owner W.W. Hodkinson May 8, 1914 — two years to the day after Zukor had launched Famous Players. When the ambitious Zukor realized that he and Lasky were producing most of Paramount’s films, he saw how to take over the company and get the power base he craved.

After secretly assembling a large block of Paramount stock, Zukor ousted Hodkinson at the June 13, 1916 shareholders meeting by nominating distributor Hiram Abrams for president and then voting his own shares to elect him. Zukor and Lasky merged their companies June 28, 1916 to form Famous Players-Lasky, valued then at a substantial $12.5M.

Zukor soon was president of the Paramount Famous Lasky Corp., which now both distributed and produced films. He also built a theatre circuit with about 2,000 screens and dominated Hollywood for decades. And you think today’s Paramount is cutthroat!

Zukor ruled his empire from Paramount’s Times Square headquarters building, which included the legendary Paramount Theatre. He was the company’s chairman emeritus when he died June 10, 1976 at 103.