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Adolph Zukor was born in Austria-Hungary in 1873, and he was one of the absolute most important pioneers of early movies! At the turn of the century he ran penny arcades and later nickelodeons, but he foresaw the potential for longer, better movies at a time when next to no one else did. In 1912, he premiered a U.S. version of the first feature-length film, Les Amours de la Reine Elisabeth starring French actress Sarah Bernhardt, at his theater, and that led him to produce many more similar movies, including the first versions of The Prisoner of Zenda (considered the first American-made feature film), The Count of Monte Cristo, The Poor Little Rich Girl, and many others. At that time there were many, many independent producers like himself, and he saw how much power they would gain if they joined together, and in 1914 he started the "Paramount Program", a loose organization of anyone who wanted to join. The great success of this program caused him the following year to form Paramount Studios (with himself as President), and they had their famous logo from the very start. Universal and the other major studios were formed soon after, but Paramount, under the leadership of Zukor, remained the number one studio for many years. A list of the movies Zukor produced in the 1920s includes many of the best films from that decade! The Great Depression took a great toll on Paramount, and they went bankrupt in 1933, and Zukor was forced out, but three years later the new President, Barney Balaban, brought him back as chairman of the board and they ran Paramount together until 1964, when they were both forced out, after the major box office flop, The Fall of the Roman Empire. Zukor lived all the way to 1976, when he was 103. In 1973 Paramount threw him a birthday party, and afterwards auctioned the 100 candles for $1,000 each and gave the money to charity. Many, many memorable quotes are attributed to Zukor. Two of the best are "The public is never wrong.", and "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself."!

Important Added Info: Note that this book has been personally autographed (signed) by Adolph Zukor on one of the first interior pages! Note that this book (and 46 other autographed books we are currently auctioning in separate auctions) was consigned to us by a very longtime collector of rare and unusual inscribed books! Many of these, but not all, were bought from Other Times Books, which was a legendary bookstore on Pico Boulevard near the 20th Century-Fox Studios in Los Angeles, California. The store was opened in 1974 by Andy Dowdy, and our consignor was one of his very regular customers. He has held these books in his collection for nearly half a century, and we are now offering them here. This is a great opportunity to purchase extremely rare books autographed by top people in the movie business! Note that Mr. Dowdy told his customers that he personally authenticated the autographs he sold, but he did not issue certificates of authenticity, so this book doesn't come with one. While we believe the autograph on this book is surely authentic, please do any research you want prior to placing a bid on it.

Also note that we have pictured the front cover, the title page, and the interior page that shows the publishing information, and one or more interior 2-page spreads.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased (although we prefer they do any "authenticating" while the auction is "live" and before they place a bid) and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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