Pat Powers (producer)
Pat Powers | |
---|---|
Born | Patrick Anthony Powers October 8, 1869 Waterford, Ireland |
Died | July 30, 1948 New York City, New York, U.S. | (aged 77)
Occupation(s) | Movie producer and distributor |
Patrick Anthony Powers (October 8, 1869 – July 30, 1948) was an American producer who was involved in the
Early career
Powers was born in
Powers partnered with Joseph A. Schubert Sr. and sold phonographs from 1900 to 1907, when they formed the Buffalo Film Exchange, 13 Genesee St.[4] which purchased films from producers and rented them to nickelodeons.
In 1910, Powers left Buffalo for
In 1912, Powers's company merged with
The 1920s
In 1912, Powers had led his own filmmaking company, part of multiple mergers that created Universal Pictures.
Between the 1922 reorganization of
- "The 15 Sep 1923 Exhibitors Trade Review reported that the filming of The Mail Man at the Pat Powers Studio in Hollywood, CA, was complete, and director Emory Johnson was personally supervising the cutting of the picture. The studio was located at the northeast corner of Gower Street and Melrose Avenue"[8]
Powers apparently(?[citation needed]) changed the name of Robertson-Cole/FBO to the Powers Studio for a brief period, though there is no record of the company ever having produced or released a film under that banner.[9][10]
In 1925, he moved briefly to take over at the distribution outfit Associated Exhibitors.[citation needed]
In 1928,
Powers invested in what remained of the
In June 1927, Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for De Forest's company.[
Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
In 1928, Powers sold Walt Disney the Powers Cinephone so that Disney could make sound cartoons such as Mickey Mouse's Steamboat Willie (1928).[12] Unable to find a distributor for the sound cartoons, Disney began releasing his cartoons through Powers' company Celebrity Productions (also known as Celebrity Pictures).
After one year of successful
In his lifetime, Powers produced nearly 300 movies, most of them early
Death
Patrick Powers, at age 77, died on July 30, 1948, at the Doctors Hospital in New York City after a brief illness. His August 1 obituary in The New York Times notes that at the time of his death he was president of the Powers Film Products Company of Rochester, New York.[15] He also had two homes, one in Rochester and another in Westport, Connecticut. His obituary also states that he was survived by his sister Mary Ellen and a daughter, Mrs. Roscoe N. George of San Fernando, California.[15] Powers' gravesite is at Holy Cross Cemetery in Lackawanna, New York, near Buffalo.
References
- ^ ISBN 978-3-8365-5284-4.
- ^ "Ub Iwerks - The Forgotten Man of Disney". DocumentaryTube. April 4, 2016. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
- ^ Buffalo Courier-Express, August 1, 1948.
- ^
- https://mediahist.org/reader.php?id=movingpicturewor00worl_0&page=363
- https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/442062357/
- https://www.buffalorising.com/2011/02/history-of-the-genesee-block-the-werner-building/
- https://buffaloah.com/h/movie/survey.html
- https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/viewsfilmindex1903film_0707
- ^ https://archive.org/stream/moviwor10chal/moviwor10chal_djvu.txt
- ^
- https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn89053728/1911-09-29/ed-1/seq-8/
- https://archive.org/stream/billboard23-1911-11/billboard23-1911-11_djvu.txt
- https://archive.org/stream/moviwor10chal/moviwor10chal_djvu.txt
- https://books.google.com/books?id=vOpJAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA202&lpg=RA1-PA202&dq=%22Red+Star%27s+Honor%22+%221911%22
- ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
- ^ "AFI|Catalog". catalog.afi.com.
- ^ Lasky (1989), p. 13
- ^ Jewell (1982), p. 8.
- ^ "Mickey Mouse and the Public Domain". vLex.
- ^ "The Uncle Walt Podcast". The Uncle Walt Podcast. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20000903203238/https://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/reviews/ubiwerks/
- ^ https://archive.org/details/ub-iwerks-comicolor-classics-the-complete-collection-1933-36
- ^ a b The New York Times, August 1, 1948.
Sources
- Richard B. Jewell with Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982) ISBN 0-517-54656-6
- Betty Lasky, RKO: The Biggest Little Major of Them All (Santa Monica, Calif.: Roundtable, 1989) ISBN 0-915677-41-5