Books › 1929 motion picture news blue book, 1929 › scan 103
Scan 103
1929 motion picture news blue book, 1929
22 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 101. See the scan on archive.org.
1Sam Katz
2President
3Publix Theatres Corp.
5SAM KATZ, head of one of the greatest theatre operating companies in the world, started his career in connection with pictures as a pianist in a penny picture show. To-day at the age of 34 he is one of the most powerful influences in the industry. His career reads much like an Horatio Alger tale. He was plunking the ivories in that penny arcade in 1906. And Carl Laemmle was the owner of the house.
7Born in Wompola, a little Russian hamlet, the young Katz came to the United States via steerage at the age of three months. His childhood was spent in the Ghetto section of Chicago. His father was a barber, and the Katz parents are still residents of the Windy City.
9Previously to his playing the penny arcade young Katz had plied the trade of messenger boy and switchboard repairer for a telephone company. He was not long playing the piano. In fact he jumped right from house musician to house manager, which got him a salary of $18 a week, but not in the house in which he was musician. This house had one hundred camp chairs, and they, with a stove were about the entire equipment, aside from the screen and projection booth. Young Katz was ambitious. Out of this $18 a week he saved a considerable proportion and eventually bought the house. Then he added an orchestra, a piano, violin and 'cello.
11It was here that young Katz established himself for all time as a showman and he made "good shows" his motto. Good shows meant better business and better business meant that he could buy another theatre. He did. He did not stop at one. He added a third and then he added on some more links and the title, "Amalgamated Picture Corporation."
13Being a theatre manager by night had not interfered with his education. He was graduated from high school and entered Northwestern University as a law student. There he met a kindred soul, Barney Balaban, who also owned picture houses, and the Katz-Balaban combination was as good as made. It was many years, however, before the two realized their ambition and built the first really fine motion picture theatre that Chicago knew—the Central Park Theatre, finished in 1917.
15The two young men had a hard financial struggle, but they succeeded with the Central Park, and the Riviera Theatre followed. That theatre taught all Chicago the trade name of Balaban & Katz, and theatre followed theatre in rapid succession, each more beautiful than the last.
17Then along came Adolph Zukor of Famous Players. He recognized a genius in Katz. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation had acquired many motion picture theatres. Amalgamation seemed logical and amalgamation followed. Publix means the ideals of Sam Katz and his executive associates. It means the last word in motion picture exposition.
19"One of the Publix Theatres" is a phrase that means the best in entertainment as well as the best in service and surroundings. Sam Katz never departed from his original idea that a better show meant better business. Those who travel widely know the Publix sign. In New York the new Paramount, the Rivoli and Rialto belong to the Publix chain. In Chicago the Publix family is more numerous. It includes the Chicago, the Oriental, Tivoli, Uptown, Norshore, Riviera, Central Park, Roosevelt and McVicker's.
21Other famous theatres of the Publix chain include the Michigan in Detroit, the Metropolitan in Boston, the Buffalo in Buffalo, the Paramount and Million Dollar in Los Angeles, the St. Francis, California and Imperial in San Francisco, the Ambassador and the Missouri in St. Louis, the Newman in Kansas City, all the A. H. Blank theatres in Des Moines and Omaha, and others too numerous to mention.
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