Mitchel H. Mark


Mitchel Henry Mark was a pioneer of motion picture exhibition and movie theaters in the United States.

Early life

Mitchel Henry Mark was born in 1868 in Richmond, Virginia. Early in his life, he moved to Buffalo, New York, and began in the wholesale hat trade, keeping a store in Buffalo the rest of his life.

Career

Early career

Along with his younger brother, Moe Mark, Mitchel founded the Vitascope Theater, one of the first permanent, purpose-built movie theaters in the world. It opened Monday, October 19, 1896, in Buffalo, New York. It operated nearly two years, the longest run for any such theater at that time: comparable early theaters were temporary and lasted only days or weeks. Mark was the first American to have a distribution arrangement with Pathé Frères to import Pathé films to the United States. Indeed, nearly the entire Vitascope Theatre program of October 19, 1896, consisted of Lumiere films.

Expansion

Again with his brother, Mitchel founded the Automatic Vaudeville Company in 1904 in New York City. Among their partners were Adolph Zukor and Marcus Loew. It was based in form on Edisonia Hall and the Vitascope Theatre in Buffalo. The Mark brothers eventually built and operated dozens of theaters in the United States.
The Mark Brothers owned and operated more than a dozen theaters in the United States and Canada called "Mark-Strand" or "Mark Strand". By 1917, Mark's importance in motion picture exhibition was such that when Cecil B. DeMille complained in his autobiography that exhibitors were protesting the high price of Hollywood movie rentals, he cited Mitchel Mark along with Thomas Lincoln Tally as the worst offenders.
Mark was married to Estelle "Stella" Brock with whom he had two daughters:
  • Annette Mark, who married Max Spiegel, a Secretary of the Mitchel H. Mark Realty Corporation, and lived in New York City
  • Winifred "Winnie" Mark, who married Victor Aubrey Lownes Jr. on June 1, 1927, and lived in Buffalo. They were the parents of Playboy executive Victor Lownes III.
Mark was prominent in Jewish charitable and religious circles in Buffalo and was a member of Temple Beth Zion. On March 20, 1918, Mark died of an infection at his family's home at 527 Richmond Avenue at the corner of Breckenridge in Buffalo. His body was buried in Forest [Lawn Cemetery |Forest Lawn Cemetery], Buffalo. At the time of Mark's death, his brother, Moe Mark, was living in Lynn, Massachusetts, and his sister, who was married to William A. Rosentahl, lived in Buffalo.
Although his name is often spelled "Mitchell", the name on his mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery is spelled "Mitchel H. Mark".