Why Jewish Movie Moguls (PDF)

Why Jewish Movie Moguls: An Exploration in American Culture Author(s): Lary L. May and Elaine Tyler May Source: American Jewish History , September 1982, Vol. 72, No. 1 (September 1982), pp. 6-25 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23882650 JST...

Why Jewish Movie Moguls: An Exploration in American Culture Author(s): Lary L. May and Elaine Tyler May Source: American Jewish History , September 1982, Vol. 72, No. 1 (September 1982), pp. 6-25 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23882650 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Jewish History This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Why Jewish Movie Moguls: An Exploration in American Culture Lary L. May and Elaine Tyler May All their lives they had slaved at some kind of dull, heavy labor, behind desks and counters, in the fields and at tedious machines of all sorts, saving their pennies and dreaming of the leisure that would be theirs when they had enough. Finally the day came... where else should they go, but to California, the land of sunshine and oranges. - Nathanael West Day of the Locust No matter how exaggerated his account may have been, Nathan ael West caught the spirit of a modern vision, unique to twentieth century America. Out on the west coast, people might forge a new future free of the past; and tied to this Utopian vision was the rise of the motion picture industry. Films were not just another means of mass communication. Rather, they were geared to psychological desires and fused to the emergence of modern urban life. Fans all over the country sat in luxurious "theater palaces," watching "stars" give them clues on how to come to terms with their post-Victorian world. Equally important, the celluloid images had a tangible reali ty, for the motion picture industry gave rise to Hollywood. Other countries made films and also concentrated studios in certain loca tions; but in America the production site was surrounded by an en vironment where the stars actually lived the happy ending in full view of the nation, providing models for emulation and identifica tion. In Hollywood, moviedom became a focal point for the ideals of mass culture. Oddly enough, this uniquely American institution was created by outsiders: Jews from Eastern Europe.1 How did this come about? Hollywood culminated a twenty-year development in movie history, beginning when Thomas Edison had invented the camera in 1889. When first shown to the public at the World's Fair in 1892, neither Edison nor his Wall Street investors saw the full implications of this gadget. It was not until ten years later that several small businessmen tapped a market in the immi grant neighborhoods that the Kinetoscope began to spread. The first producers to capitalize on Edison's device were native-born Protestants, who made hundreds of short films that were shown in nickelodeons cropping up all over the urban North. Yet it took more than a decade before the movies and theaters started to at tract more affluent audiences. By 1914 movies attracted viewers of ! Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust (New York: 1939), pp. 130-131. 6 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls all classes and ethnic groups, becoming the first truly mass amuse ment in America. During these years, film innovators turned the once-crude peep show into a complex art form, and a multi million-dollar business. From nearly a hundred small firms in 1912, eight major companies emerged to centralize production, distribu tion and exhibition by the 1920's. The "Big Eight" were created by Jewish businessmen who had entered the industry during its early years, following on the heels of the Protestant-American pro ducers. These Jews were responsible for the expansion of the movie industry, including the star system, plush theater palaces, and most importantly Hollywood - radiating the consumer-oriented lifestyle of the twentieth century.2 It took a new breed of film makers to make movies a major vehi cle in the transition from Victorian to modern life. Unlike the American-born producers, the Jews who built Hollywood original ly entered the business not as inventors, cameramen, or artists. Rather, they were theater owners who began their businesses in their own immigrant neighborhoods. A few came from Germany, most from Eastern Europe, and virtually all were part of the vast wave of foreigners who entered the northern cities in the late-nine teenth and early-twentieth centuries. Initially, these entrepreneurs set up nickelodeons in urban areas filled with various ethnic groups and went on to build store fronts and luxury theaters in more af fluent communities as the market expanded. By 1913, a number of these businessmen had become so attuned to the needs of the au dience that they seized the opportunities available in this still mar ginal industry and entered production for themselves. In the pro cess they consolidated casting, filming and exhibition until by 1920 they virtually monopolized film making in this country.3 Why the Jews came to dominate the industry has generated widespread comment but little solid analysis. E. L. Doctorow's re cent best seller, Ragtime, focuses on the crises of culture from 1890 to 1920, and culminates when the Jewish hero from New York's Lower East Side moves to Hollywood and enters the film industry. A quick glance at the autobiographies and obituaries of the major film producers tells us that Doctorow's portrayal was not far off the mark. Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures was the son of an Orthodox German Jew who made his living as a cobbler. Harry rose from a trolly conductor and vaudeville player to head a major company. Jesse Lasky, the son of an immigrant shoe salesman, 2 See Lary L. May, Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry, 1896-1929 (Oxford: 1980). 3 See Elaine Tyler May, "The Jews in Hollywood" (UCLA M.A. Thesis, 1970). 7 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History rose to be president of Paramount Pictures. Carl Laemmle founded Universal Pictures after immigrating from Eastern Europe and be coming a clothing salesman. Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, was the son of a Talmudic scholar and first worked in the junk business. The Warner Brothers founded their company after work ing as cobblers and bicycle repairmen. Marcus Loew, who con trolled a vast chain of theaters in the East, and then became vice president of MGM, was the son of an Austrian writer. After im migrating, Marcus worked in a fur factory, then moved into nickelodeons. When F. Scott Fitzgerald fictionalized these men and sat them around a dinner table in his 1930's novel, The Last Ty coon, he captured the spirit of the film world: Eleven men and their guest, Prince Agee, sat at a lunch in the private dining room of the studio commissary. They were the money men - they were the rulers; eight of the ten were Jews, five of the ten were foreign born, including a Greek and an Englishman, and they had all known each other for a long time; there was a rating in the group, from old Marcus down to old Leanbaum who had bought the most fortunate block of stock in the business and never was allowed to spend over a million a year producing.4 Fitzgerald and Doctorow are only two among many observers who have noted the phenomenon of Jews becoming leaders in the movie industry, and forging a modern nobility. Yet no one has yet offered an adequate explanation of why and how this happened. Scholars may have shied away from the issue for fear of inadver tantly falling into ethnic stereotyping. Perhaps that is why it has been left to novelists who, under the cloak of fiction, have probed the delicate issue of motivation. Monroe Stahr, Fitzgerald's hero in The Last Tycoon, is a Jewish movie mogul whose ethnic back ground infuses his aspirations and personality. Fitzgerald attempts to confront "the tradition," as he phrased it, of the "eight of the ten" men who controlled the movies. By explaining that Stahr "had just managed to climb out of a thousand years of Jewry into the late eighteenth century," the author places his hero in that element within Jewish culture that had a powerful drive towards seculariza tion and enlightenment. Not only does he live in an Anglo world, but he longs to marry an American gentile. Fitzgerald also per ceives that Stahr and his peers did not rise through the stereotypical stinginess. Rather, they could easily spend lavishly and enjoy afflu ence, surrounding themselves with expensive art and aristocratic homes.5 4 E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime (New York: 1975), pp. 368-369; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon (New York: 1941), p. 55. 5 As part of a vast literature on this subject, see Leo Rosten, Hollywood, The 8 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls Despite these insights, Fitzgerald did not really penetrate the background of his central character to probe the ethnic issue in depth. That depth of insight came from a writer who grew up in Hollywood and whose father had been part of the original found ing generation of producers. In Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run, the Jewish narrator tries to fathom the motivation of the most successful producer in the business, Sammy Glick. Glick embodied the drives and ambitions of the idealized self-made man of American folklore. Yet his desire to make it was nourished, in Schulberg's view, by his origins. Sammy's father comes to America as a devout Orthodox Jew, who begins the process of assimilation while crossing the Atlantic. As one of his children dies on the boat, he explains to his wife that "maybe God is trying to tell us that we will not carry the troubles of the old world into the new. We will have sons, little Americans." But in America poverty continues to stalk the household, intensified by the father's commitment to labor organization and good deeds. While the elder Glick finds meaning in the synagogue along with his oldest son, Sammy con fronts the street life of New York's East Side. Beaten up by Irish children for being Jewish, he learns that it is a tough world where the fastest and shrewdest survive. By scheming and manipulation he rises out of poverty and into the good life of Hollywood, com plete with marriage to a rich Anglo woman, daughter of a Wall Street financier. Sammy even hires his former Irish tormentor from the block to be his "yes" man, thereby reversing the old role of "Cossack" and Jew. Summarizing Sammy's drive, Schulberg's nar rator muses I thought of Sammy Glick rocking in his cradle of hate, malnutrition, prejudice, suspicion and amorality, the anarchy of a dog-eat-dog world... I no longer hated Rivington Street [the East Side neighborhood of Sammy's youth], but the idea of Rivington Street, all Rivington Streets of all nationalities piled up in cities like gigantic dung heaps smelling up the world... I saw Sammy Glick on a battlefield where every soldier was his own cause... and Sammy was proving himself the fittest, the fiercest and the fastest.6 Ultimately, however, the analyses of Schulberg and Fitzgerald are inadequate. The heroes' drives rose out of poverty and oppres sion, universal conditions that could be applied to any poor boy who made it. His Jewishness is not really the issue. Was there any thing unique about the rising film industry, and the tradition of Eu Movie Colony and the Movie Makers (New York: 1946) and Norman Freedman, "Hollywood, The Jewish Experience and Popular Culture," Judaism, Fall, 1970, 482-487; Fitzgerald, Tycoon, pp. 17, 52-56, 90, 142. 6 Budd Schulberg, What Makes Sammy Run (New York: 1941), pp. 7, 179-203. 9 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History ropean Jews, that brought the two together? Impoverished origins and expanding opportunity faced many Americans, but it was the Jews who took over the movies. Although Sammy Glick's ancestors may have suffered more than others, we still must wonder why the same desire to make it did not inspire poor Irish Catholics, Italians, Greeks or others to dominate movie making. To begin a tentative explanation, we need to keep three elements in mind. One is how the moguls in their rise to success epitomized certain common trends within modern Jewish experience. Another is why the Jews would be uniquely prepared to tap the movie phenomenon. And finally, we must consider the timing of their rise as producers and corporate leaders as part of the meaning of the film industry in American culture.7 In the first place, the Jewish immigrants of the late nineteenth century had a heritage that gave them several advantages in the film industry, as well as in the larger society. Recently scholars have shown that these newcomers experienced more upward mobility than any of their fellow immigrants. The movie moguls were per haps the most dramatic examples of this ethnic success story, and they like their peers benefitted in part from the traditions and cur rent circumstances that encouraged their rise. Paradoxically, it was their very outsider status in Europe which gave impetus to much of their future in the new world. As Hannah Arendt has shown, the Jews in Europe were a stateless people, free of strong national ties. Never rooted in one place or even tied to the land, they maintained strong tendencies to flexibility, which made them quite adaptable in cosmopolitan settings. In addition, discriminatory policies in Russia and other coun tries had made land ownership difficult and encouraged Jews to enter commercial trades. For hundreds of years, they lived in towns and cities of the Pale or eastern European ghettos, serving as small merchants or craftsmen for a rural hinterland. When industriali zation spread from the west to Eastern Euope in the late-nineteenth century, the unique economic status of the Jews as small property owners was disrupted. At the same time, violent pogroms erupted. Acutely aware of the power arrayed against them, and accustomed to gauging it for centuries, many Jews immigrated to America. And unlike Italians, Greeks, or other southern Europeans, they came in family groups and did not look back nostalgically to a homeland. While other Europeans went back and forth, the Jews settled per 7 None of the works on film confronts this issue directly, including the most recent scholarly studies. See for example Robert Sklar, Movie Made America (New York: 1975), pp. 36-47. 10 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls manently with their kin in American cities. To facilitate matters, their experience as shopkeepers and skilled workers gave them trades that could be utilized in a rapidly urbanizing country. At a time when most other immigrants, and Americans for that matter, came from rural backgrounds, the Jews as literate urban entrepre neurs had a great advantage. They quickly compensated for their relative lack of capital and began to climb the economic ladder.8 For the Jews who entered the movies, there was also a unique as pect of American economic development that contributed to their success. Because they had been outsiders, they were conditioned to seize new commercial opportunities that were not already mo nopolized by people of the host culture who might discriminate against them. In Eastern and Central Europe the landless Jews functioned as tradesmen on the margins of an agrarian society. In addition, since they were occasionally forced to leave their homes at a moment's notice, many found it in their interests to have occu pations not tied to land. European Jews thus became sensitive to style and skilled at meeting the desires of the surrounding group and finding opportunities on the fringes of society. In America's urban economy, which at the time of massive Jewish immigration was becoming more consumer oriented, particularly in eastern cities like New York, these newcomers used their former skills to succeed in ready-made clothing, entertainment, and other entrepre neurial endeavors. Little wonder that moguls like Adolph Zukor started by selling furs, Samuel Goldwyn made gloves, and Louis B. Mayer owned a burlesque house. Carl Laemmle often compared selling movies to his experiences selling garments. For both required a sensitivity to current styles. Critically important in all these trades was the ability to suspend one's own tastes and calculate the desires of others. The moguls cul tivated this art, giving them an edge in a marginal industry which appealed to consumer desires. Since film was a leisure activity rather than a necessity, the Jews were able to move into the field with ease. To sharpen his perceptions, Samuel Goldwyn would sit 8 On the uniqueness of the Jews, see Nathan Glazer, "The American Jew and the Attainment of Middle-Class Rank, Some Trends and Explanations," in Marshal Sklare, ed., The Jews, Social Patterns of an American Group (Glencoe, 111.: 1958), pp. 138-146. For the economic position, skills and demography of the ar riving group as well as their position in Europe, see Simon Kuznets, "Immigra tion of Russian Jews to the United States: Background and Structure," Perspec tives in American History, 10 (1976), pp. 35-124. On the mobility of Jews in comparison to other immigrants see Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bosto nians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970 (Cam bridge, Mass.: 1973), pp. 136-137, 142-143, 162-165. 11 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History in the front of the audience with his back to the screen, watching the viewers' reactions to the celluloid images. He explained his methods this way: If the audience don't like a picture, they have a good reason. The public is never wrong. I don't go for all this thing that when I have a failure, it is because the audience doesn't have the taste or education, or isn't sen sitive enough. The public pays the money. It wants to be entertained. That's all I know.9 Using skills like these, Jewish moguls gained spectacular success in the movies. But their rise was not merely the realization of Amer ican individualism. Rather, these leaders combined a strong sense of commercial opportunity with the realization that, as in the shtetl, they could only make it if they helped each other. Abraham Bisno, an organizer of the garment trades in New York and Chicago, articulated this tendency. He believed that his fellow Jews held a particular outlook toward life that contributed to their business acumen. In the old country, he argued, the aristocracy lived for the past, the peasants for the present, and the Jews for future opportunities. This spirit carried into the new world. Nicholas Schenck, who became head of United Artists, admitted, "Yes, I've done all right for an immigrant boy, it could only happen in this country... unfortunately it is not always greatness that takes a man to the top. It is a gambling spirit. I used every bit of my ability at dangerous times, while other men slowed down at the curves." Yet linked to this risk-taking drive was a strong sense of group co hesion. Even the reckless Nicholas Schenck, like the fictional Sam my Glick, never abandoned the network of ethnic ties: Schenck and his brother Joseph were partners. Following the same pattern, Sam and Jack Warner were brothers and partners; Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn, Sam Katz and Carl Laemmle were family friends as well as business associates; and Carl Laemmle became famous for what was probably typical, hiring scores of relatives to work in his Universal studios.10 Further, these producers made films and statements filled with 9 For the eastern European Jews' concentration in moveable trades, particularly clothing, see Kuznets, op. cit., pp. 56-57, 104-113. 10 Abraham Bisno, Bisno, Union Pioneer (Madison, Wisconsin: 1967) pp. 5-45; Alan Hynd, "Interview with Nicholas Schenck," Liberty Magazine, June 28, 1941, p. 8. On Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn, see "Obituary," Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1974; on Balaban and Katz, see Carrie Balaban, Continuous Performance: The Story of A. J. Balaban as Told to his Wife (New York: 1942), p. 74; for Zukor and Loew see Adolph Zukor, The Public is Never Wrong (New York: 1953), p. 237. On Laemmle's policy at Universal, see undated clipping, Laemmle File, Museum of Modern Art Film Library, New York. 12 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls patriotic symbols. Obviously this was good business; but it also struck a true chord among them. For America appeared to offer the flowering of Jewish aspirations for assimilation, ambivalent though they may have been, that were often thwarted in the old country. Perhaps the strongest of these drives, for many, were sec ularization and enlightenment. Late in the nineteenth century a number of European countries granted civil rights to Jews, pro viding the first step toward full participation in the host culture. As a result, the deep millenial traditions within Judaism flourished, giving rise to a cultural renaissance that yielded a tremendous po tential to change both Jewish life and the wider world. Within the Jewish community, religious movements like Hasidism or reinvig orated Orthodoxy appeared. Other theological reactions involved a move towards liberal and conservative brands of the faith. Still other Jews reached out for the secular world. In artistic circles, there was a flowering of rich poetry and literature in Yiddish as well as the vernacular. Jews who saw a sharp contradiction between pogroms and poverty and the promise of the new life became Zion ists, radicals, or purely enlightenment thinkers, in the New World as well as the Old." In America, all of these tendencies could flourish, for those who wanted an individualized secular millenium might see this as the promised land. Discrimination was still present, to be sure, but unlike in Europe there were no strong anti-Semitic politics, and a separation of church and state combined with a democratic culture encouraged Jews to enter the wider society. In addition, the relig ious structure of Judaism contributed to this process of seculariza tion. As one observer perceived, it was easier for Jews to tap this opportunity than Catholic immigrants, accustomed to a hierarch ical church and state, for "in its ecclesiastical institutions no religion is more democratic than the Jews. Among them there is no authority comparable to the Roman Catholic Pope, no denomina tional supervision.... Any ten Jews can organize a synagogue and choose one of their own members and employ a rabbi." This decen tralized structure also fostered assimilation into an expanding econ omy, and many Jews began to shed their Yiddish, their distinctive 11 For a general study of the liberalizing trend in Europe and America, see Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (New York: 1957), and Harold Rosenberg, "Jewish Identity in an Open Society," in Harold Rosenberg, ed., Discovering the Present (Chicago: 1973). The classic novelistic account is Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky (New York: 1917). The links to success, assimilation, and Amer ican patriotism came through all the mogul's writings; see in particular Samuel Goldwyn, Behind the Silver Screen (New York: 1923), pp. 1-35. 13 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History clothes, and even their names in the process of Americanization and upward mobility. Every Jewish movie mogul went through at least part of this pro cess. Some married gentile women, and retained their Jewishness not through Orthodoxy, but through liberal synagogues or purely charity organizations. Each might have agreed at one time or an other with the similarly inclined hero of Abraham Cahan's brilliant novel, The Rise of David Levinsky, who saw that in America, pro vided one had the money, public equality at least appeared pos sible. Entering a dining car on a train where he joined a group of American businessmen, David remarked, But 1 was aware that it was "aristocratic American" food, that I was in the company of well dressed American gentiles, eating and conversing with them, a nobleman among noblemen. I throbbed with love for America.12 Levinsky's optimism, however, only partially explains why Jews were so successful in the entertainment industry. Movies, after all, were not just another consumer product. Rather, they satisfied the quest for entertainment and were linked to a new leisured life style. Upward mobility into the unique world of movies, then, of fered a chance to be free of perhaps the most pervasive experience of Jewish life: fear of social ostracism. Given that the taint of com merce had so often been used by anti-Semites to argue that Jews were "stingy" or money hungry, Jews in Europe eager to assimilate had modeled themselves on the aristocracy, and surrounded them selves with the trappings of "culture" - a leisured and artistic en vironment. In America, the movies - including theater palaces, mansions, and stars - appeared to embody noble grace. Thus it is no accident that Cahan, Fitzgerald and Schulberg all placed their heroes within commercial endeavors that could yield status through mass-produced "culture" and "high style." In this manner, the former pariahs could each become, as Cahan perceived, a "noble man among noblemen," free of the commercial associations that had brought so much persecution in the Old World. The moguls, moreover, could take their quest for grace one step further. They were able to combine business acumen with their in herited tradition of expressiveness. In contrast to the dominant ele 12 Ibid.', Ray Stannard Baker, "The Disintegration of the Jews," American Maga zine, October, 1909, pp. 590-603; Cahan, Levinsky, p. 329. David Levinsky, of course, by ambition, trade, and secularization is very similar to the moguls. For a brilliant discussion of European Jews' desires for assimilation and culture, see Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de Siecle Vienna, Politics and Culture (New York: 1980), pp. 129, 148-150. 14 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls ments of American culture, which were permeated with a code of self-denial, Jews were accustomed to a cultural life that included a great deal of festivity. There is no question that Jewish tradition emphasizes a strong moral code and condemns hedonistic in dulgence. Yet at the same time Jewish folk culture encouraged cele brations distinctly different from the rituals of Protestant middle class Americans and more in tune with their fellow immigrants. A rich tradition of humor softened the acute awareness of outsider status and was often used against the dominant group's pretentions and discrimination. Religious holidays and the Sabbath included an abundance of spontaneity, music, singing, and drinking - no small matter in a Victorian society often committed to blue laws and sobriety. Though Jews shared with Americans a taboo against premarital sex and a strong dedication to familial fidelity, women were considered sexual beings, unlike their Victorian sisters. More over, Jewish women in Eastern Europe were never put on a pedestal; they functioned in the economy and participated in relig ious rituals in the home. Lastly, Jews did not share the ascetic frugality of their Protestant peers. Money was not to be continually poured back into business at the expense of enjoyment; rather it was to provide the means for a life of comfort, even extravagance when it could be afforded.13 The Jews were not the only ones to have these traits. But the moguls drew on the unique combination of traditions in Jewish life to move into the movies. With their expressive heritage, the Jewish film moguls were prepared to confront the moral experimentation taking hold of the nation. The key to this process was timing. It was not enough that they were skilled at consumer trades and sensitive to new trends or that they drew on a folk tradition. But at the turn of-the century, these Jews provided the missing link in the de velopment of the motion picture industry. For the cities where these immigrants landed were the hotbeds of the "revolution in manners and morals" changing the contours of American society. Middle class culture was in crisis. Although we have yet to figure out the precise relationships, the rise of big business and affluence paral leled a questioning of time-honored sexual roles and the rela tionship of the middle classes to the upper and lower orders. Now the solid bourgeois white-collar worker and the women who had entered the economy began to patronize ethnic entertainment zones and experiment with the styles of "foreigners" and even Blacks. 13 On expressiveness in an integrated culture see Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog, Life Is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York: 1952), pp. 409-430. 15 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History Ragtime, the dance craze, and the rise of amusement parks were some of the symbols. Along with the spread of new public arenas to tap this quest for fun, both sexes began to indulge in new sexual styles. Women's skirts became shorter, and at the beaches bathing costumes were more revealing. The press was filled with comments on youth going out unchaperoned, breaking the divisions between male and female behavior that marked Victorian life, and taking on formerly forbidden styles and dress. The Jewish immigrants found themselves in the midst of this upheaval. Abraham Cahan observed that the East Side had become a place upon which one descended in quest of esoteric types and "local color," as well as for purposes of philanthropy and "uplift" work. To spend an evening in some East Side cafe was regarded as something like spending a few hours at the Louvre; so much so that one such cafe, in the depth of Hudson Street, was making a fortune by purveying expen sive wine dinners to people from uptown who came there ostensibly to see how the "other half lived," but who saw only one another eat and drink in freedom from restraint of manners.14 Experimentation with new styles, however, did not happen easi ly; for there were no legitimate institutions where it could take place. Perhaps the most visible reaction to this lack came in the form of the vice crusades of 1908. Led by upper and upper-middle class Protestants, these reforms were prompted by alarm at the new mores. Although the crusaders focused their energies on Victorian young women who seemed to act like harlots - a profound danger to the family - there were a number of other anxieties surfacing in their reports. Would mass consumption destroy the self-denial principles of success? Would the fraternizing of the sexes in com mon arenas lead to a disintegration of the home? Would public life no longer provide a sense of order in the democracy? Still, reform ers saw themselves as Progressives who could master evil amuse ments and create positive institutions of play. Playgrounds, parks, boys clubs and YMCA's were among the results of their efforts. Another was to legitimize films through censorship.15 14 Henry May, The End of American Innocence (Chicago: 1959); James R. McGovern, "The American Woman's Pre-World War I Freedom in Manners and Morals," Journal of American History 55 (September, 1968), 315-333; John Higham, "The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s," in John Weiss, ed., The Origins of Modern Consciousness (Detroit: 1965), pp. 24-48; Cahan, Levinsky, pp. 284-285. 15 On the general atmosphere see Egal Feldman, "Prostitution, the Alien Woman and the Progressive Imagination, 1910-1915," American Quarterly, 19 (Sum mer, 1967), 199-206; Roy Lubove, "The Progressive and the Prostitute," The Historian, 25 (May, 1962), 308-329. On their relation to film see May, Screen ing, Chapter III. 16 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls Film makers and theater owners initially thought this would be bad for business. But soon they began to see that with the seal of approval from a censorship board, their products might tap not just a working-class, but a middle-class market as well. The end re sult was a censored, longer, morally-uplifting "photoplay," free of the taints surrounding the nickelodeon "flickers." While this did serve to bring the movies into better neighborhoods, its producers were culturally unprepared to confront the implications. It was not the American film makers, but rather the Jewish distributors, who were able to seize the potential for better markets. They did this by gradually experimenting with ways to sanction consumption and class mingling for more affluent audiences. Describing the first stage of his success was Adolph Zukor, a small theater owner in 1906. Bridging the gap between people's de sires for "lower-class vitality" and their inclinations for respecta bility, he recalled that "nickelodeons had to go, theaters replaced shooting galleries, temples replaced theaters, cathedrals replaced temples." Another exhibitor, Marcus Loew, refurbished his Brook lyn amusement parlor, which served partly as a nickelodeon, and changed its name from the Cozy Corner to the Royal. In Chicago the future head of Universal Studios, Carl Laemmle, transformed his chain of nickelodeons into prestigious "White Fronts." Still others like A. J. Balaban of Chicago, who would soon create a large chain with Samuel Katz and merge with Adolph Zukor, made the most of the synthesis between movies and reform. On his mar quee he displayed a magnificent letter from the greatest social worker of them all, Jane Addams: It is unfortunate that the five cent theaters have become associated in the public mind with the lurid and unworthy. Our experience at Hull House has left no doubt that in time the moving picture will be utilized for all purposes of education. The schools and churches will count film among its most valuable entertainment and equipment." Best of all, as these theaters did begin to attract patrons from "better" neighborhoods, they created a gathering of the population amid a refined atmosphere. Yet it still provided a place for the mingling of classes and sexes in an egalitarian setting. Unlike the playhouses of the nineteenth century, all people gathered at the 16 On the move into middle-class markets see Russell Meritt, "Nickelodeon Thea ters, 1905-1914: Building an Audience for the Movies," in Tino Balio, ed., The American Film Industry (Madison, Wisconsin: 1976), pp. 59-83; B. P. Schul berg, "Adolph Zukor," Variety, December 1, 1926, unpaginated clipping in Zukor File, Museum of Modern Art, New York; David Warfield, "Marcus Loew, My Friend and Partner," New York Morning Telegraph, September 6, 1927, p. 5; Balaban, Continuous, p. 42. 17 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History movies, at prices one-tenth to one-twentieth of the elaborate con cert halls uptown. One of the most successful theater owners of New York City in the teens, William Fox, saw this process em bodying many of his own desires for equality. Like much of the early audience, Fox was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. Working first as a garment cutter in Manhattan, he opened a nickelodeon around 1906, then graduated to store fronts and luxury houses by 1912. Fox recalled that "the motion picture when it started did not appeal to the native born who had their own means of recreation... its appeal was to foreigners who did not understand our tongue." When vice reformers launched crusades, Fox turned New York's notorious Haymarket Saloon - the most famous pub of the vice district - into a white, Grecian-style movie house. In this symbolic gesture, Fox identified many of his own aspirations with the movies. As he wrote in his trade journal of 1912, Movies breathe the spirit in which the country was founded, freedom and equality. In the motion picture theaters there are no separation of classes. Everyone enters the same way. There is no side door thrust upon those who sit in the less expensive seats. There is always something ab horrent in different entrances to theaters... in the movies the rich rub elbows with the poor and that's the way it should be. The motion picture is a distinctly American institution.17 At the same time these creators of theaters were adroit at fusing luxury to the democracy. Like Henry Ford's Model T, the key was mass merchandising. Early in 1912 the movie theaters began to spread elegance to the masses. Lavish furnishings, mirrors and mammoth staircases presented monuments to the new era. These were the sorts of trappings which had previously marked the hotels and entertainments of the rich. Now they were available for five or ten cents. To add to the aura, new films were greeted by highly pub licized premiers attended by the powerful and prestigious, whose glamor rubbed off on the movie house. On one level this was good business. As Marcus Loew, head of New York's largest theater chain, explained, "The gorgeous theater is a luxury and it is easy to become accustomed to luxury and hard to give it up once you have tasted it." Given this need, owners could raise prices that the masses could still afford, since the product carried some of the refinements 17 "William Fox Obituary," Box Office Magazine, May 10, 1952; Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1952; Motion Picture World, March 17, 1929. In a lecture to the Harvard Business School, Fox described the rise up the class ladder. See Joseph Kennedy, ed., The Story of the Films (New York: 1927), pp. 303-305. The quote is from William Fox, "Possibilities of the Motion Picture Unlimited," Fox Exhibitors Bulletin, June 1914, p. 31, in William Fox File, Museum of Modern Art, New York. 18 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls of old world aristocracy. "If the patrons don't like it," wrote Carl Laemmle as he raised his entry fees, "tell them that's the way they do it in Europe." In other words, with high class respectability, lux ury was no longer deemed decadent.18 The entire environment also had to be personalized so that the fan could feel important and still remain at one with democratic principles. One of the shrewdest men at achieving this delicate bal ance was A. J. Balaban of Chicago, who standardized the pattern for Paramount Pictures prior to World War I. The son of a Jewish immigrant, Balaban worked as a factory laborer before entering the entertainment business in 1905. After vice crusaders closed his dance hall, he opened a movie house which carried a sense of legiti macy. Soon he became the most successful manager in Chicago. Part of his formula lay in providing luxury at cheap prices and teaching his employees how to handle patrons. Ushers wore uni forms and treated each customer as a gentleman or a lady. This was necessary because for all its appeal there was an uncomfortable aura of status surrounding the theater. Balaban insisted on friendli ness from the ushers to soften the sense of pretention and power that emanated from the atmosphere. So the youthful employees were instructed to act without condescension and treat all as friends. In this way the well-stroked patron felt like somebody and was ready for some good clean fun.19 Soon theater owners realized that this new life of luxury, folk mingling and fun was what drew patrons, and they began to move into production in order to extend this appeal onto their screens. They perceived that in the period from 1912 to 1914, films por traying a more expressive life could draw wider audiences. Setting up studios of their own, they now began producing films to match their theaters. These were geared not so much to working-class tastes, but to those of the bourgeois who wanted to legitimize his or her desire for "foreign" excitement. Surely the future moguls were not the only ones to see this opportunity; but they had several ad vantages which would lead them to success far beyond others. Adolph Zukor, future head of Paramount Pictures, was a case in point. Coming to America from Hungary in the late-nineteenth 18 On the rise of prices see Stephan Bush, "Is the Nickel Show on the Wane?" Mo tion Picture World, November 16, 1914, p. 1065; Carl Laemmle, "Editorial," Universal Distributors Bulletin, p. 5, in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science Library, Los Angeles; Marcus Loew, "The Motion Picture and Vaude ville," in Kennedy, The Story, pp. 290-295; "Millionaire Homes in Film Land," Theater Magazine, April, 1915, pp. 181-199. 19 Balaban's life, his handbook and friendly atmosphere cultivated in nearly every theater of the day is described in Balaban, Continuous, pp. 45, 51, 70, 159-170. 19 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History century, Zukor turned to his relatives to help him get started in the clothing and fur business. Financial success came to Zukor along with cultural assimilation; shedding strict Orthodoxy, distinctive clothing and kosher food he was very much a part of the seculariz ing process. With the spread of nickelodeons in New York City, Zukor opened several small theaters in commercial districts and gradually expanded into luxury houses.20 Even more importantly, while the American-born film makers continued in their old ways, Zukor made a major break. Entering production with his friends Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille, he formed Famous Players in Famous Plays. Beginning in 1914, they brought famous Broadway stars into the movies. The idea of tap ping the legitimate stage was a brilliant one. Broadway had been an upper and upper-middle-class playground at the turn of the cen tury. By bringing this cultural and cosmopolitan aura into a formerly lower-class entertainment which had begun to draw more "respectable" audiences, he could tap the audience's desires for both high-class "culture" and "low brow" excitement. Zukor and his partners then forged into new types of "photoplays," longer films which told a story, utilized the best techniques available, and most importantly, featured noted players. These "stars" offered more than prestige. A well-known personality not only drew people into the theaters but provided models for a new life. During these years, it was famous personalities who showed audiences how to do new things and affirm new styles, without shedding wholesome values of family and achievement. Although they were idolized, they appeared to be ordinary folk with whom the viewers could identify. By synthesizing experimentation with traditional American virtues, they could show audiences how to turn vice into acceptable forms of amusement and help point the way toward reorienting the culture toward modernity.21 In addition to perceiving the key psychological needs of the au dience, the fact that men like Zukor owned theaters made it pos sible for them to get crucial financing, which would ultimately allow them to gain control of the industry by merging supply (the stars), production (the studios), and distribution (the key theaters). For the early producers, even after several successful films, had to pay exorbitant interest rates for loans. Bankers saw the enterprise 20 For Zukor's career see Albin Krebs, "Adolph Zukor Dies at 103, Built Para mount Movie Empire," New York Times, June 11, 1976, pp. 1, D18; and Zukor, The Public; Zukor and William Fox described the new theaters they ran in Ken nedy, The Story, pp. 55-58, 303-305. 21 For a description of stars' appeal, see May, Screening, especially Chapter V. 20 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls as new and disreputable, since a film maker without outlets only had his camera and studio to offer as collateral. Financiers thus took loans on the rights to an individual film. If it failed, they were left with nothing but useless celluloid. Yet when Zukor, as well as other future moguls, went into production, they had the advantage of owning theaters which had value as property, regardless of the films. Confident that his photoplays would yield profits, Zukor ap proached banks for low-interest loans, offering his theater build ings and land as security. Nevertheless, several Wall Street bankers still hesitated, and Zukor, as he phrased it, by-passed the "loan sharks." He then turned to ethnic financiers who were more willing to take risks. With the backing of A. H. Giannini's Bank of Italy (the future Bank of America), and the German-Jewish firm of Kuhn, Loeb, Zukor could soon boast to Charles Chaplin in 1919: Remember it was I who first had the vision! Who swept out your dirty nickelodeon? Who put in your plush seats? It was I who built your great theaters, who raised prices and made it possible for you to get large grosses for your pictures.22 Bigger and better theaters and productions also served to edge out competitive film makers. In the years from 1912 to 1920, the future moguls merged mass production to mass distribution for the first time in motion picture history. Between 1910 and 1914, over seventy production companies sold their films on an open market to hundreds of exhibitors. Despite the attempts of the original Protestant producers to monopolize the market through a patent trust, it was virtually impossible to stymie this consolidation, for they did not own theaters. But now the control of stars through contracts, the adroitness at seizing upon new trends, and the ownership of key distribution outlets led to centralization. Indeed, it was not necessary to have all the theaters under contract, only the most prestigious. For as early as 1913, movies released in a downtown theater with a gala premier drew on the aura of urban sophistication and promised high profits. Now big companies could build up large markets for films through national advertising 22 See Harry Aitkin, The Birth of a Nation Story (Virginia: 1965), for the high rates and problems of getting good financing. A. H. Giannini, future head of the Bank of America, explained that in 1914 he started to see that good loans could be made to Paramount, undercutting the "bonus sharks." See A. H. Giannini, "Financial Aspects," in Kennedy, The Story, pp. 77-98. Zukor's new sense of elation of having received $10 million from the bankers in 1914 is in Zukor, "Origin and Growth of the Industry," in Kennedy, The Story, pp. 73-74. The Chaplin quote is from Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: 1964), pp. 240-241; Zukor also "admitted that he had plans to amalgamate both the theaters and the studios," see p. 240. This was in about 1920. 21 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History and openings in sumptuous movie houses. Then they could sell these films to independent theater owners who were anxious to have large grossing films. Slowly the future moguls began to buy more theaters, the "cathedrals of motion pictures," in the downtown areas. Once they gained control of several hundred of these strategically placed outlets, the major firms contracted stars and bought out smaller competitors. Universal Studios alone had purchased fifteen firms by 1915. Ultimately, this process would diminish the seventy firms of 1914 to the "Big Eight" by the 1920's.« In creating large integrated corporations, these men had no nos talgia for the entrepreneurial economy of the past, nor the ascetic tradition that went with it. As the producers centralized film mak ing, they put on the screen stories that affirmed not just the Amer ican success story, which was their story as well, but the joy of spending and fun. Lack of space prevents us from describing these films in detail but there was one institution off the screen which epitomized the new style of moviedom. This was the Hollywood studio, certainly one of the greatest innovations of the Jewish moguls. Prior to 1913, central studios remained in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Long Island, while location filming was often done on the west coast or in Florida. The atmosphere of these east coast studios incarnated pure production values. Often situated in commercial areas, downtowns, or housed in ware houses, they were nothing if not functional. But after reform in 1908, ambitious producers began to uplift the ambiance of the studios by surrounding them with an aura of Victorian propriety. At Brooklyn's Vitagraph studio, for example, formality was the rule. Surnames were always used, for as its manager explained, "This was part of a plan to exert every precaution in favor of our young actresses. While it may be regarded as unusual precaution on our part, we nevertheless ordered all couches removed from dress ing rooms and make-up areas."24 In contrast to these eastern establishments, the moguls built studios in Los Angeles that radiated an atmosphere of moral experimentation. Although it was certainly not bohemia, Carl Laemmle's Universal City exuded a new style. Surrounded by hills and palm trees of the San Fernando Valley, the white, Spanish-style 23 See May, Screening, Chapter VII. 24 See "A History of Production in the East," Director's Annual, 1934, pp. 25-32; an insightful view of the east coast studios in the early days is in Chaplin, My Autobiography, pp. 170-177. See also "Essanay's New Studio in Chicago," Mo tion Picture World, July 11, 1914, p. 266. For the quote and studio policy of Vitagraph, see Albert Smith, Two Reels and a Crank (New York: 1952), p. 212. 22 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls architecture connoted enjoyment. Touching base with patriotism, the administrative building followed the design of Mount Vernon. Appropriately Laemmle, a former clothing dealer and theater owner from Chicago, called his weekly column in the 1915 trade journal the "Melting Pot," for it glorified the stars who rose up the ladder of success, shed their ethnic or Victorian past, and assumed healthy cosmopolitan personalities. One, featuring Christy Mathewson, a pitcher for the New York Giants, showed a man bored with office work who turns to baseball for fun and ad venture. Other flyers showed stars playing amid Roman, Athenian, Egyptian and Parisian sets, including lions, tigers, and elephants. In this fun-loving cosmopolitan atmosphere, as one studio publica tion boasted, "Mexicans, Chinks, Indians and good Italians work, and such is the soothing climate of California that all these con trary entities live in harmony."25 Here, in essence, was a secular environment where Jews as well as others might presumably be free of past inhibitions and prej udices. Yet most importantly, at a time when Americans were try ing to merge their desire for affluence and consumption with a strong tradition of success, the Hollywood studio suggested how this might be achieved. While stars and producers personified the Horatio Alger dream, they did so within the context of the new order. In the twenties, studios capitalized in the millions offered salaries for featured players and executives ranging from $100,000 to $900,000 yearly. Opulent dressing rooms and offices mirrored the good life, and the company offered security from the rough and tumble laissez-faire economy of the past. Executives proclaimed that health, retirement and life insurance were available to all salaried employees. Even though this conspicuously left out com mon workers - no entrepreneur in early Hollywood welcomed labor - the studios' trade journals displayed the gymnasiums, steam rooms, tennis courts and pools that were presumably available to all employees.26 25 On an early expression of a west coast studio see "American Studio at Santa Bar bara," Motion Picture World, July 11, 1914, p. 240. For the opening of Univer sal and description, see "Universal City Opens," Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1915, Part III, p. 4. The Melting Pot column and quote can be seen in Universal Weekly, September 1914, pp. 1-37, in Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Los Angeles. 26 Ibid., for Universal's vacation paradise. The capitalization of the west coast studios, anywhere from $1 million to $15 million each, is documented in the Mo tion Picture Trade Directory, 1928, New York, 1928, p. 211. For the coordina tion of production, selling and theaters, as well as life and health insurance, see Kent, "Distribution and Selling the Product," in Kennedy, The Story. The sal 23 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  American Jewish History Equally important, even though these studios were firmly within the corporate world, it is crucial to keep in mind that the movies were a strange blend of modern and traditional business styles. Be cause of this uniqueness, the moguls could maintain that part of their heritage which encouraged them to shy away from organiza tions controlled by potentially hostile or discriminatory superiors. Clearly, they created a bureaucracy - but it still encouraged talent. A film relied on imagination rather than the elaborate coordination of processes and machinery that went into making a product such as steel. After all, it only took a camera to make a movie. But without careful calculation and personal involvement that made, sold and marketed a film, there could be no profit. Moreover, the Jews themselves were in control, and offered a place where a per son could rise on talent, without having to face a rigid hierarchy that in other industries might not welcome ethnics. Movies, then, could honestly hail the individualistic ethic as part of the highly organized corporate order of the twentieth century. That is why Budd Schulberg could write of Hollywood: It still had this gold rush feeling... The gold rush was probably the only other set up where so many people could hit the jackpot and the skids together. It has become a modern industry without losing that crazy fever of a boom town.27 Ironically, it was Jewish immigrants who carried into Holly wood the metaphor of the gold rush; but now the boom town was geared to an entertainment that contributed to the reorientation of American life. By both their heritage and the timing of their entry into the business, the Jewish movie moguls came to dominate the industry. When we ask why this should be so, we cannot ignore the cultural baggage that contributed to Jewish success in this country: literacy, urban skills, and the ability to seize opportunities in mar ginal economic realms. Like Fitzgerald's Monroe Stahr or Schul berg's Sammy Glick, they were ambitious and driven men who came from meager origins and pioneered new forms of distribution and production. Yet what allowed them to take over this industry was more than business acumen, which was certainly not exclusive aries of the lop executives of the major firms were released by the Federal Trade Commission in 1934. In the late twenties these salaries went from $100,000 to $900,000 for the top ten executives in each studio; see The Motion Picture Almanac, 1934, p. 963, for a reproduction of the report. For labor strikes, see Louis B. Perry and Richard Perry, A History of the Los Angeles Labor Move ment, 1911-1941 (Los Angeles: 1963), pp. 320-342. 27 On distinction between these kinds of corporate styles, see Alfred Chandler, The Visible Hand, The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass.: 1977), pp. 209-239; Schulberg, Sammy, pp. 213-214. 24 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Jewish Movie Moguls to the Jews. Rather, it was the unique status of assimilating Jews who could combine their folk traditions with their desires for cul ture and status, and fuse these to the unique developments at the time. For in the period from 1900 to 1920 when the modern movie industry emerged, the middle classes looked to mass culture for clues as to how to synthesize bourgeois values with their desires for low-brow fun. Since the Jews were not bound by a Victorian past, they were quick to perceive these yearnings, and realized that by creating styles of consumption and leisure institutions they could reap handsome rewards. The result was a business which fused mass production to democratic culture. In the process, these out siders ironically built for the twentieth century a very American phenomenon. 25 This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:57:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms