Bibliograph

The man who made the movies, the meteoric rise and tragic fall of William Fox, Vanda Krefft

Type

Label

The man who made the movies, the meteoric rise and tragic fall of William Fox, Vanda Krefft

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

individual biography

Illustrations

illustrationsplates

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

The man who made the movies

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1002678502

Responsibility statement

Vanda Krefft

Sub title

the meteoric rise and tragic fall of William Fox

Summary

A riveting story of ambition, greed, and genius unfolding at the dawn of modern America. This landmark biography brings into focus a fascinating brilliant entrepreneur--like Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, a true American visionary--who risked everything to realize his bold dream of a Hollywood empire. Although a major Hollywood studio still bears William Fox's name, the man himself has mostly been forgotten by history, even written off as a failure. Now, in this fascinating biography, Vanda Krefft corrects the record, explaining why Fox's legacy is central to the history of Hollywood. At the heart of William Fox's life was the myth of the American Dream. His story intertwines the fate of the nineteenth-century immigrants who flooded into New York, the city's vibrant and ruthless gilded age history, and the birth of America's movie industry amid the dawn of the modern era. Drawing on a decade of original research, The Man Who Made the Movies offers a rich, compelling look at a complex man emblematic of his time, one of the most fascinating and formative eras in American history. Growing up in Lower East Side tenements, the eldest son of impoverished Hungarian immigrants, Fox began selling candy on the street. That entrepreneurial ambition eventually grew one small Brooklyn theater into a $300 million empire of deluxe studios and theaters that rivaled those of Adolph Zukor, Marcus Loew, and the Warner brothers, and launched stars such as Theda Bara. Amid the euphoric roaring twenties, the early movie moguls waged a fierce battle for control of their industry. A fearless risk-taker, Fox won and was hailed as a genius--until a confluence of circumstances, culminating with the 1929 stock market crash, led to his ruin

Table Of Contents

Part I: Beginnings, 1879-1903 -- Part II: The greatest adventure, 1904-1925 -- Part III: The one great independent, 1925-1929 -- Part IV: Despair, 1930-1943 -- Part V: Acceptance, 1943-1952

Classification