Frank Joseph Goldsoll

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Joseph Goldsoll (* 1873 in Cleveland , Ohio ; † 1934 or 1935 in Europe ) was an American, later French businessman. Goldsoll supposedly had his name changed during the First World War because it sounded too German to him. In addition to Goldsoll, the versions Goldsol, Godsol, Godsoll u. in circulation.

Life

The beginnings: fake jewelry

Goldsoll was the son of a tailor and had Jewish ancestors of Russian descent. Around the turn of the century he moved to France , where he was naturalized in 1911. He came into serious conflict with the law for the first time in Paris in 1905 , when he was convicted of counterfeiting jewelry or selling fake jewelry as genuine.

Goldsoll opened stores selling artificial gemstones in many countries around the world. He was vice president of M. Tecla & Co. on Fifth Avenue, incorporated in 1907, which manufactured man-made gemstones and pearls. The film historian Bosley Crowther described Goldsoll as a person who built a career for himself through “high-class swindling”, A. Scott Berg says that he advertised so intensively that the Tecla pearls are far superior to the original that he about it never came to the mention of its artificial origin. On the other hand, Goldsoll, owner of Taits American Diamond Palace, was prosecuted in Germany as early as 1904 for unfair competition and false claims and requested to be expelled as an annoying foreigner, but there is no evidence that he would have concealed the artificial manufacture of his products at the time.

In 1912 Goldsoll planned the construction of the Ice Palace behind the Astor Theater on 45th Street in New York based on the Berlin model. The house should have two balconies, a restaurant and space for 2000 guests.

Film business before and after the First World War

Goldsoll invested in various companies in France, Germany and the UK. Among other things, he secured Lee Shubert the rights to Kinoplastikon in the USA in 1912 . In 1913 he founded a number of vaudeville and film theaters in Germany and France with Al Woods . In a press report it was announced: “AH Woods and his associate, FJ Goldsoll, will control fourteen theaters in the important cities of Germany, and as many in France, besides two in Vienna and three in Brussels. Six are located in Berlin [...] “The Quo vadis film , for which Woods and Goldsoll had secured the performance rights in Germany, was to be shown in several of these movie theaters . Also the rights for the performance of all productions of the Cines in Rome , which also Quo vadis? had turned, in America they intended to secure themselves. His preoccupation with the film seems to have been interrupted by the First World War, but later Goldsoll was temporarily vice president of the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation . This came about when Goldwyn tried to reorganize its finances in the summer of 1919 by bringing various shareholders on board: Lee and JJ Shubert, Sam H. Harris and Al. H. Woods each participated with $ 125,000 and the appropriate rights. However, that wasn't enough to put Goldwyn in the black. Frank Joseph Goldsoll, a cousin of Woods' wife, however, was ready to take action. He established a connection with Du Pont in Delaware , an arms and chemical factory. A. Scott Berg writes in his Goldwyn biography: "Godsol catalyzed a deal, and the Goldwyn Company entered the world of big business." With Goldsoll and the Du Ponts, more financially strong investors have come, including the President of the Chase National Bank and a representative of the Central Union Trust Company: "The turn of a page, and the Goldwyn Company books went from tens of thousands of dollars in red ink to five million in the black." With this, Goldsoll had acquired the right to a leading position in the company . Goldwyn officially became president, but Goldsoll was given the same post and paid the same wage, $ 1,000 a week. However, he decided not to do so and said he would work for a dollar a week for the first year. With the financial redevelopment, the company had the opportunity to expand in Culver City and build extensive structures.

War profiteers?

During the First World War , Goldsoll served in the French army as an officer driver for about a year, including for General Faurier. But even at the beginning of the war he was interested in acting as an agent for American and Italian car manufacturers for the French government and in procuring war vehicles. In August 1915, the Goldsoll Traders Corporation was founded in New York. After contacting the French purchasing committee, the group was renamed Alliance Motors Corporation. Officially, his uncle Abraham Goldberg was the president of Alliance Motors Corporation, but Goldsoll is said to have been the leading head. In September 1915 Goldsoll came to the USA as secretary and translator for the French purchasing commission. He had promised Minister Albert Thomas that his negotiations would save the French government large sums of money. In November 1916 he was ordered back to serve in the army in France before he was released from it in early 1917 due to health problems. He then returned to the USA.

Much of his property in Europe was confiscated during the war.

French Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand requested an investigation into the machinations of Alliance Motors Corporation after it was suspected that Goldsoll had made millions in profits from its dealings. He had made himself suspicious, among other things, by his exclusive lifestyle. He had rented several country houses in Saratoga for the racing season and kept four Rolls-Royce vehicles at the same time. As recently as January 1918, attempts had apparently been made to avoid an investigation into the Goldsoll case.

In December 1917, Goldsoll married the French actress Constance Elise de Vere in Newark (New York) . Around the same time an article appeared in the New York Times in which Goldsoll was still assumed to be innocent of certain machinations, but at the beginning of March 1918, Goldsoll was arrested in the United States at the instigation of the French ambassador after spending several weeks on vacation in Palm Beach . He was accused, among other things, of having enriched himself with the procurement contracts of the French and Russian governments by three to six million dollars, in particular also that he had concluded contracts with five different automobile companies, while French law prohibited government officials from collecting such quantities to collect lucrative commissions. However, Goldsoll stated that the contracts had already been concluded before he entered the service of the government. Overall, it initially seems to have been unclear whether Goldsoll was even authorized to conclude contracts for the purchasing commissions or not. Another incident from the time of the First World War had nothing to do with engine power: Allegedly, Goldsoll had promised the French army to procure a few dozen healthy horses, but delivered inferior mules.

The last few years

Goldsoll was soon released and continued to work in the film business, now apparently mostly under the name Joe Godsol. In 1921, his brother Louis H. Goldsoll, who had invested in steel bungalows after the war and got into economic hardship, shot himself at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York. In 1923 Frank J. Goldsoll bought a summer property in Mamaroneck that was once owned by Charles J. Osborn and designed by Stanford White . In 1926 it was sold again. After Goldwyn was sold, Goldsoll left America and returned to Europe, where he died about a decade later.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to ancestry.com .
  2. ↑ According to Film History , Taylor & Francis 1988, p. 150 , Goldsoll did not die until 1935.
  3. ^ A b New-York Tribune, March 7, 1918, p. 14
  4. ↑ Stephen Birmingham, The Rest of Us. The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews , Syracuse University Press 1999, ISBN 978-0-8156-0614-7 , pp. 198 f.
  5. ↑ Data on Tecla & Co.  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.boliven.com  
  6. ↑ Goldsoll as a representative of Tecla
  7. ↑ Bosley Crowther in The Lion's Share , quoted from Film History , Taylor & Francis 1988, p. 133
  8. ^ A b c A. Scott Berg: Goldwyn: A Biography . Simon and Schuster, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-4711-3006-9 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  9. ↑ Deutsche Goldschmiede-Zeitung 7, 1904, passim
  10. ↑ Goldschmiedekunst 25, 1904, p. 359
  11. ^ Ice Palace Announced , in: Variety , March 1912, p. 79
  12. ^ Report in the New York Dramatic Mirror of June 4, 1913, p. 18 (PDF; 533 kB)
  13. ↑ According to this information , Goldsoll also had its own film company.
  14. ↑ Katharina Loew, 'Tangible Specters: 3-D Cinema in the 1910s,' Film Criticism 3/1 (Spring / Fall 2013), pp. 87-116.
  15. ↑ Embassy Opposes Inquiry , in: New York Tribune, January 22, 1918 p 13
  16. ^ Stops Debate on Goldsoll , in: New York Times, December 15, 1917
  17. ↑ Notes on gold target (PDF; 1.2 MB)
  18. ^ Charge Goldsoll Stole Millions , in: New York Times , March 7, 1918
  19. ↑ Godsol's Brother Suicide in Hotel , in: New York Times, November 2, 1921
  20. ^ Show Place Sold for Beach Club; Its History , in: The Scarsdale Inquirer , July 3, 1926, p. 3
personal data
SURNAME Goldsoll, Frank Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American, later French businessman
DATE OF BIRTH 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Cleveland , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH 1934 or 1935
Place of death Europe