Fox, William (producer)

Fox was born in the city of Tolchva , Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) in the family of German Jews - Michael Fried and Anna Fuchs. Parents called the boy Wilhelm or Vilmosh. The family emigrated to the United States when Wilhelm was only 9 months old and settled in New York. The family had 12 children, only six of them survived, the rest died in infancy. Wilhelm worked as a distributor of newspapers and in the fur and clothing industry. In America, he changed his name to William Fox (by the mother’s last name, “Fuchs” in German means “fox”, as well as “Fox” in English).

In 1900, Fox founded his own company, which he sold in 1904 to acquire his first cinema. After that, he concentrated on buying and selling cinemas. Interested in production, he was able to attract investment funds and on February 1, 1915, he founded the studio of Fox Film Corporation , initially based in New Jersey . In 1919 he also founded the studio, which specialized in newsreels .

In 1924, Fox bought a patent from for his development of sound recording on film , in July 1926, he acquired the American rights to the sound cinema system of the German invention “ Triergon ”, and then proceeded to purchase the full rights to “ Muviton ”, invention of , which allowed to produce an optical recording of the sound track on film. At the same time, to further improve the sound recording system, Fox hired Case Earl Sponsabel.

Already in 1926, Fox's studio used “Muviton” when shooting several short films and the film “How Much Does a Victory Cost?” ( What price glory? ) With an asynchronous musical-noise phonogram. The following year, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau 's feature film “ Sunrise ” came out with the same sound design, winning three Oscars in 1929 at the very first award ceremony.

In December 1927, the Newsreel studio was transformed into , which became a major producer of newsreels in the United States until 1963, along with studios such as (1929-1967) and (1935-1951). The Muviton system was used by Fox studios for all sound productions up until 1931.

In March 1927, Fox became the main owner of the New York - he bought out the share of film producer Herbert Labin ( eng. Herbert Lubin ) for five million dollars a week before the opening of the theater, which took place on March 11 with a silent film with Gloria Swenson in the main roles The Rockettes dance group also worked there (in 1932, after Fox started having difficulties moving to Radio City Music Hall ).

In 1927, Marcus Lowe, who led Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , died, and control of the studio passed to his assistant, Nicholas Schenk . In the changes of a competitor, Fox saw an opportunity to expand his empire by merging with MGM parent company. MGM bosses Luis Meyer and Irving Talberg were outraged - despite their high positions, they were not shareholders and could not influence Schenk. Meyer used political connections to convince the Justice Department to sue Fox for violating federal antitrust laws. At this time, in mid-1929, William Fox was badly hit in a car accident. When he recovered, the stock market collapsed , which destroyed many financial holdings and buried every chance of a merger between and Fox .

Fox lost control of the Fox Film Corporation in 1930 during a hostile takeover. The combination of the stock market crash, injuries resulting from a car accident, and antitrust actions imposed by the US government forced him to start a protracted seven-year struggle to prevent bankruptcy.

In 1936, he attempted to bribe Judge John Warren Davis and perjured, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. After the departure of this period, Fox left the movie business.

William Fox died on May 8, 1952 at the age of 73 in New York and was buried in the cemetery in Brooklyn. Not a single Hollywood producer came to his funeral.