Friday, February 1st, 2013
From the latest issue of American Film, this interesting feature.
“To commemorate the 90th anniversary of Warner Bros. Pictures, we’ve compiled a list of 90 historical tidbits culled from a variety of sources, including the new documentary The Brothers Warner by Cass Warner Sperling, granddaughter of Harry M. Warner. Here are the first ten tidbits:
At the end of the 19th century, the Warner family came to America from Krasnosielc, a town near Warsaw that Russia had annexed from Poland.
The family name was originally Wonskolaser.
The brothers Warner were named Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack. There were eight other children in the family.
In 1903, the three eldest Warner brothers became ‘Nickelodeon junkies,’ spending all their spare time and money on the five-cent moving picture machines.
To raise capital for his sons’ entry into the film business, a passion that required no university degree, Benjamin Warner sold his gold watch and ‘Bob,’ the horse that pulled his meat delivery wagon.
Sam procured a second-hand Edison kinetoscope projector, ‘the machine that spells certainty of success in the motion picture business,’ to launch the partnership.
Sister Rose Warner played the organ at her brothers’ first theater, the Cascade in New Castle, Pennsylvania.
Jack L. Warner was a ‘chaser,’ the theater employee charged with getting audiences to leave their seats after one screening – in his case, by singing badly. He once demonstrated his technique, bellowing ‘O sole mio!’
Albert, physically the largest of the brothers, specialized in distribution and acted as a go-between for Harry and Jack, who frequently disagreed.
Sam Warner was keenly interested in technological innovation and saved the studio in the 1920s by championing talking pictures.”
You can read the entire article by clicking here, or on the image above.
Tags: 90th Anniversary, AFI, American Film, Cass Warner Sperling, Harry Warner, Hollywood History, Jack Warner, Sam Warner, The Brothers Warner, Warner Bros.
Posted in Documentaries, Film Business, Film History, Film Industry, History, Inside Stuff, Pop Culture | Comments Off
