Spyros Skouras

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spyros Panagiotis Skouras ( Greek Σπύρος Σκούρας , born Spyros Panagiotis Skouras , often referred to as Spyros P. Skouras ; * March 28, 1893 in Skourophorion , today Skourochori, Greece ; † August 16, 1971 in Mamaroneck , New York , United States ) a Greek-born, American film company manager whose work has determined the fate of 20th Century Fox for twenty years .

Live and act

The early years

The son of a Greek shepherd was born as one of ten children in a town on the western edge of the Peloponnese . Skouras attended a theological seminar on site. Spyros emigrated to America in 1910 with two of his brothers, Karolos (Charles) Skouras (1889–1954) and Giorgios (George) Skouras (1896–1964), who were later to fill managerial posts in the US under his leadership. to seek happiness there. Here Spyros was trained at Jones Commercial College in St. Louis. To earn a living, he worked as an assistant at the Planters Hotel in St. Louis and after work as a newspaper delivery man. After a while, the three brothers had earned a good 3500 dollars and saved up together so that they were able to acquire a stake in the Olympia Theater in St. Louis in 1914. Over the years, the Skouras brothers were not only able to pay off their partner, but also buy up all of the city's cinemas bit by bit. In 1926, the Skouras brothers owned 37 movie theaters, which they sold to the Hollywood production company Warner Bros. in the late 1920s . Spyros Skouras was hired by Warner in 1929 as general manager of the company's own cinema chains. A little later Skouras left Warner again and switched to Paramount Pictures , where he in turn directed their cinema chain.

As head of 20th Century Fox

In 1932 Spyros Skouras went with his two brothers to the Fox Film Corporation , where he looked after around 500 movie theaters on the west coast, the Fox Metropolitan Theaters, and saved this branch of the company from the looming bankruptcy. In 1935, Skouras was the driving force behind the merger of Fox with rival firm 20th Century Pictures to form the new production giant 20th Century Fox. After seven years, Spyros had made it and was named to the top of the industry giant. Since April 1942 he was president of 20th Century Fox and held that office for a good 20 years. He was supported by the experienced and successful producer Darryl F. Zanuck , who was hired as head of production. The Skouras-Zanuck era was, at least in the first half until the early 1950s, extremely successful and brought a wealth of box office hits to the cinemas.

For a long time after the Second World War, Skouras refused to acknowledge that a strong competitor had emerged with television and tried to address it with the advertising slogan “ Movies Are Better Than Ever ” and the development of a wide-screen cinema in which he bought Cinemascope . At that time, the power of the Skouras brothers was still very far-reaching: They not only controlled 20th Century Fox, but also the National Theaters, Fox West Coast Theaters, United Artists Theaters, Skouras Theaters, Magna Corp. as well as the Todd-AO method.

Skouras' miscalculation, at the beginning of the 1960s, when the classic monumental film cinema of the past decades had long outlived itself to set up the multimillion-dollar large-scale productions Cleopatra , cost both him and producer Zanuck the job. At the end of the production phase , when the Cleopatra costs threatened to get out of hand, Skouras was relieved of his post on June 27, 1962 and praised: He subsequently served Centfox as its chairman, his successor in the presidential chair July 1962, of all people , the main person responsible for the Cleopatra bankruptcy: Zanuck.

On Skouras' initiative, Century City was created in the early 1960s , a district in the Los Angeles area that was developing around the film company . In March 1969, Skouras resigned from the Centfox board post and devoted the remaining two years of his life to his various other business investments, including his own shipping line, Prudential Lines.

family

Spyros' descendants also worked or work in the film and television business: His eldest son Spyros S (olon). Skouras (1923–2013) headed the Skouras Theater Corporation in New York, his younger son Plato A. Skouras (1930–2004) worked as a film producer under his father. His grandson Charles P. Skouras III. is active as a film and TV manager. His great-granddaughter Marielle Skouras has made a name for herself with the production of television shows and launched the successful reality show Beverly Hills Pawn .

literature

  • International Motion Picture Almanac 1965, Quigley Publishing Company, New York 1964, p. 269
  • Carlo Curti: Skouras, King of Fox Studios. Holloway House Publishing Company, Los Angeles 1967
  • Ephraim Katz : The Film Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. Revised by Fred Klein and Ronald Dean Nolen. New York 2001, p. 1268
  • Ilias Chrissochoidis: Spyros P. Skouras Memoirs (1893-1953). Biography, Brave World-Verlag 2013

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The Colossal Optimist. Spyros Panagiotis Skouras ”. Article in The New York Times, June 28, 1962.
  2. ↑ "Zanuck Succeeds Skouras as president of Fox". Report in the New York Times dated July 26, 1962
  3. ^ Report in the New York Times of March 13, 1969

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Skouras, Spyros
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Skouras, Spyros P .; Skouras, Spyros Panagiotis (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek-American film company manager
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Skourophorion , Greece
DATE OF DEATH 16th August 1971
Place of death Mamaroneck , New York , United States