My Review
He never intended to shake up the movie industry. At heart, he was and would always be a social conservative who wanted to change nothing except his own status from outsider to insider. William Fox's life might have turned out to be like many marginalized, unassimilated immigrant sons driven to derangement by their disappointment in America, but his energy, ambition, and hope didn't allow it. "He loved America, its values, its processes, its definition of culture. Consequently, in starting Fox Film, he aimed to create a respectable image by translating high-minded literary and stage plays into motion pictures...". "I was put down as the craziest man in the city," Fox recalled, "...a nut who thinks he can delude us into believing that pictures can be made into movies." They used to say the same about Walt Disney and look at the contribution these path-breakers gave to the evolution of a medium from new technology to a modern and original art form. Not to mention the monumental importance of a public social experience that helped millions of Americans and immigrants throughout decades of unsettling cultural, social, and political turmoil.
A deeply exhaustive and meticulous portrait of an era, its most emblematic industry, and one of its most fascinating figures. 5 stars!
A deeply exhaustive and meticulous portrait of an era, its most emblematic industry, and one of its most fascinating figures. 5 stars!
About the Book
The Man Who Made The Movies:
The Meteoric Rise And Tragic Fall Of William Fox
By
Vanda Fox
Published by Harper Collins
November 28, 2017
Biography, Non-Fiction
Amazon
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.
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.
