A. J. Balaban
Abraham Joseph Balaban, was an American showman whose influence on popular entertainment in the early 20th century led to enormous innovations in the American movie-going experience.
After leasing and operating a nickelodeon house in 1909, Balaban oversaw the commission and design of Chicago's great movie palaces for the Balaban & Katz exhibition chain, integrated live performers into themed stage extravaganzas with full orchestras and forever changing vaudeville, and inspired numerous and novel ideas for theatre management.
A. J. Balaban's most productive period was from 1909 to 1929. It was a measure of his success and respect that in 1929, the February 27 issue of Variety was dedicated to him, and the following August a massive Citizens' Dinner in Chicago was organized to bid him farewell upon his move to New York to assume a creative position with Paramount/Publix, with which B&K had merged in 1926.
The artistic and managerial genius of the Balaban & Katz team, A. J. Balaban—from his earliest years as a young man singing in small theatres to illustrated glass slides, to the mastery of "presentations" that featured singers, dancers, and musicians in a variety of turns culminating into lavish tableaux—had as an overarching inspiration the comfort and satisfaction of the audience.
According to Abel Green, editor of Variety, the venerable show business trade newspaper, Balaban "did more than any individual to glorify the cinema setting", and his theatre management established a successful model for other national exhibitors. As for performers and the production of effective shows and pacing, William Morris Senior, the talent manager, wrote in an open letter in Variety to Balaban, "You have done more for proper presentation than any other man ever connected with it."
Among Balaban's many show-business innovations were large theatres seating thousands of people in grand architectural palaces that resembled "fairy-lands"; the integration of movies and stage shows, alternating throughout the day; the presentation on movie-theatre stages of many of the giants of American show business, including The Four Marx Bros., Sophie Tucker, Gladys Swarthout, Ginger Rogers, organist Jesse Crawford, and the orchestras of Paul Whiteman and John Philip Sousa, among many others; stage bands for every theatre, each with its own master of ceremonies, usually a gifted orchestra conductor "M.C." like S. Leopold Kohls or Paul Ash; rigorous training for theatre ushers, drawn from the local male college population; theatre checkrooms with courteous "no-tipping" service; and single admission charges for continuous performances.
Between bouts of elective retirement in Geneva, Switzerland, and other locales, Balaban returned to the film and exhibition business periodically. Beginning in 1942, Balaban began nearly a decade as Executive Director of New York's Roxy Theatre at the request of Spyros Skouras of 20th Century-Fox, restoring the theatre to profitability with access to first-run Fox films, as well as the production and presentation of first-class live shows. During this time, Balaban installed an ice rink on the Roxy stage, and instigated the first-ever "four-a-day" by the New York Philharmonic for two weeks in September 1950.
Although the "presentation style" mix of movies and elaborate stage shows is no longer in popular or economic favor, it was Balaban's pioneering success in Chicago with this combination that today is often associated with Radio City Music Hall in New York.
Early life and career
A.J. Balaban was the second of eight children born in Chicago to Jewish parents Augusta "Goldie" from Odesa and grocery store owner Israel Balaban, from Tiraspol. Barney, the financial mainstay of the family, was the first born and in young adulthood would come to work for the Western Cold Storage Company, earning $25 a week. After A.J. came a daughter, Ida, followed by brothers John, Max, Dave, Harry and Elmer. The large family lived in back of a grocery store run by the parents.At an early age, the two oldest boys would go to plays at local Chicago theatres, and Balaban confessed that "theatre fascinated me".
After a variety of odd jobs, Balaban found steady employment as an errand boy for local clothiers, hauling woolens and delivering suits. In his off hours, he pursued opportunities to sing, with his sister accompanying him on the piano. At his older brother's urging, he prepared a business card that read: "Abe Balaban, Singer. Character Songs."
On New Year's Eve, just before 1917 rolled in, Balaban proposed to Carrie Strump, a girl he had known in grade school and with whom he had become recently reacquainted. In April 1918, Balaban and his fiancé traveled to New York, where Balaban phoned Variety to get the name of a good rabbi to perform the marriage ceremony. The couple was wed on April 7, 1918.
In September 1922, Balaban's sister Ida, now Mrs. Sam Katz, died. Balaban's first child, Idajoy, named after her deceased aunt, was born in December.
Early theatres
When ice and ice-cream purveyor and owner and founder of the "Sparkle Ice Company" and "Nonebetter Ice Cream Company", Samuel Donian, owner of "The Kedzie", a "nickel show" in a store on the corner of Kedzie and 12th Street, needed a last-minute act, 18-year-old A.J. and his sister performed "Take Me Back to New York Town"."How different it all was to the worries about fruit and vegetables spoiling before they were sold, and quarrels about under-weight and over-charge!" he recounted in his 1942 memoir, Continuous Performance. "It seemed much more attractive to me to rent a store where we could sell people a good time. 'We have only to rent films and hire a picture operator,' I said. 'I could be the singer and Ida could play the piano.'"
The Kedzie
During the first week singing at the Kedzie, the family came to hear A.J. and Ida, and on the way home his mother Gusse was enticed by the idea of a 'cash business' for the family. A.J. learned from Charles Klaproth, the Kedzie's theatre manager and picture operator, that the Kedzie would rent for $100 a month. Balaban met with Donian about taking over the theatre operation, and "persuaded his family to rent the Kedzie from Donian". Pooling their savings of $178, the two older Balaban brothers and their parents took over the Kedzie on January 11, 1908; they all kept their day jobs.A.J. Balaban would book the films during his lunch break, acquiring product from the Vitagraph, Biograph, Lubin, Essanay and Edison studios. At once he eliminated two of Donian's promotions—a "circus-spieler" urging audiences to step inside, and a large gramophone blasting tunes to the street—intuitively choosing a more restful and less honky-tonk image.
After a day's work, he would go to the theatre, where the doors would open at 7 p.m. The house had 103 camp chairs, some of which were broken and therefore not revenue-producers, and there were difficulties with electricity and attendance during severe winter storms. The shows and entertainment changed daily, with Balaban and his sister performing to "Illustrated Songs". Balaban would mingle with the audience and urge everyone to sing together.
In addition to performing, Balaban also greeted incoming customers, beginning a lifelong commitment to hospitality and personal attention. His first innovation was to celebrate a holiday with a related film and entertainment. According to Balaban, his St. Patrick's Day screening of "The Irish Blacksmith" with his singing of "She's the Daughter of an A.P.A." and "Tipperary", was "the talk of the neighborhood".
A violinist was hired whose job was to accompany the films and participate in the entertainment. At first the musician, preoccupied with watching the picture, played incompatible passages. Balaban suggested the application of faster and slower music to correspond with the action. "So began the first music-cuing of our films", he recalled.
By spring, with competitors looking for locations on the same street, Balaban told his older brother that they needed to build a bigger theatre. In September 1908, the brothers announced that they would not renew their lease on the Kedzie, but would build a $25,000 theatre on a lot at Sawyer and 12th Street, one block away. Though they concluded their relationship with the Kedzie in January 1909, the new theatre—to be called the Circle—would not open until Labor Day. Debts piled up, but Balaban relayed that "I loved every minute of the terrific wrestling of planning shows and house-management policies. New ideas seemed to pop like fire-crackers in my mind."
The Circle
With The Circle featuring 700 seats and a four-piece orchestra, Balaban instigated a two-show-nightly policy, with matinees on Saturday and Sunday. With those responsibilities, Balaban left his steady employment and spent most of his days at the offices of the Western Vaudeville Agency. Having studied talent wherever he sang, he had learned to assess the entertainment value of performers. And he began to consider how to routine the Circle's shows, alternating between short films like "Aesop's Fables" and "Pathe Weeklies" and live acts, creating terms like "openers", "fillers" and "chasers". Israel Balaban, his father, carried films to and from the theatre each day.A scant two months after its opening, the show business trade paper Variety called The Circle "a neat little house" that for an admission of 10 cents provided "four vaudeville acts and several reels of pictures. The house changes shows every Thursday and Monday, splitting with S. Chicago." Still, a Variety review published in January 1910,, chides the theatre for poor arrangement of its acts. Balaban admitted that, later, he "saw and remedied the monotony and sameness that had defeated 'variety'—the other name for vaudeville."
One remedy was the recognition of pure talent. Balaban worked with Minnie Palmer, mother to The Four Marx Bros., to book the Marxes' "Fun in High School", a popular act, and he worked often at The Circle with singer Sophie Tucker. Tucker wrote in her autobiography that "A. J. was the first to put on presentation shows in all the picture houses. It was he who brought out the first big bands. His houses with their huge orchestras, stage show, and pictures, all for less than a dollar admission. ... A.J. had a positive genius for knowing what the public would go for."
The other remedy was a responsibility Balaban felt toward the audience, "for making these people happy and gay; to release them even for a moment from the depression of their drab homes and usually burdened lives. That was my big aim and it dominated my every thought."
Balaban considered theatre management to be as creative and exciting as booking and creating the entertainment. His innovations at The Circle included free admission for children under 10 and a baby carriage service that watched over sleeping infants on the sidewalk outside of the theatre. When a baby awoke, a slide would be flashed on the screen—"Mother, Number 47, your baby is crying." Other innovations attributed to A. J. Balaban include themed holiday presentations; shoppers' bargain matinees; reduced prices for week-day and non-peak hours, and midnight shows; giant illuminated theatre signs; and on-site nursery playrooms and hospital facilities.
In addition to entertainment and hospitality innovations, the Balabans continued to make new business connections, securing an interest in the Ashland Theatre, taking over the Magnet Theatre near The Circle, and starting a film exchange called The General Feature Film Co. Balaban, capitalizing on what he saw as American audiences' fascination with film stars, opened a restaurant called The Movie Inn decorated with portraits of Theda Bara, Mary Pickford, Dorothy Gish, Fatty Arbuckle, Francis X. Bushman, Norma Talmadge and many others. Problems with the liquor license, gigolos preying on married women, and "waiter trouble" led Balaban to retire from the café business, declaring that the theatre business was "tame and safe by comparison."