Siegmund Lubin

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Siegmund Lubin (born April 20, 1851 in Breslau or Posen , † September 11, 1923 in Ventnor City ) was an early German-American cinema pioneer.

Life

Siegmund Lubin was born as Siegmund Lubszynski in 1851 in Breslau or Posen into a German-Jewish family. He studied at the University of Heidelberg , where he obtained a degree in ophthalmology . In 1876 he emigrated to the USA , settled in Philadelphia in 1883 and worked there as an optician from 1885 at the latest . He also ran a Penny Arcade and produced projection images for the magic lantern . In 1896 he began to distribute films for the company of Thomas Edison , by whom he was sued in 1898 for infringing his patents.

He acquired his first film camera from the inventor C. Francis Jenkins in 1896 and made his own films. He sold his own film projectors, cameras, films, screens, phonographs, tickets and presentation tents for vaudeville managers and projectionists. In 1902 he invested the proceeds from his demonstration business in the first permanent Nickelodeon in Philadelphia. In the following years he founded a chain of cinemas and expanded into six US states. In order to keep the company going and to be able to satisfy the public's demand for new films, Lubin kept having films copied by his competitors. This business practice was accompanied by an ongoing ten-year dispute with Thomas Edison over copyright and patent rights , which only ended in 1908 with Lubin's forced incorporation into the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC).

In the course of the reorganization of its film activities in 1909, the Lubin Manufacturing Company was created from the sales proceeds of its cinema chain , and from 1910 onwards it operated its own studios (“Lubin Studios”) in the north of Philadelphia - the largest in the world at the time. His specialties included topical films, comedies, and car chases. Lubin was indifferent to the artistic and narrative development of film in the early 1910s; his focus was on financial usability. His market analyzes often contradicted the MPPC. He campaigned for then independent, Jewish film producers such as Mark Dintenfass , Harry Warner , Samuel Goldwyn , Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille and was considered the prototype of the Jewish film mogul.

In June 1914, Lubin's film studios, the film archive and the recordings for numerous topical films were destroyed by a major fire. The resulting economic problems for the company were exacerbated even further, as the company lost access to many important foreign markets with the outbreak of the First World War . The decline of the Lubin company was also due to the mediocrity of its film productions at that time. In 1917, the Lubin Manufacturing Company eventually went bankrupt. In the following years Siegmund Lubin tried to get back into the film business without success and worked as an optician in Philadelphia. He died in his New Jersey home in 1923.

Although Lubin is largely forgotten today (also because few early silent films have survived), he is one of the most important US film entrepreneurs from the early days of the medium. For his services to the film industry, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (address: 6166 Hollywood Boulevard).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical overview prepared by Lubin's biographer Joseph P. Eckhardt
  2. ^ Biographical overview prepared by Lubin's biographer Joseph P. Eckhardt Siegmund Lubin: King of the Movies
  3. ^ Siegmund Lubin: King of the Movies
personal data
SURNAME Lubin, Siegmund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lubszynski, Siegmund (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Trailblazer of the film
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw or Poznan
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1923
Place of death Ventnor City