Famous Players Film Company
The Famous Players Film Company was an American film company founded in New York City in 1912 by Adolph Zukor in partnership with the Frohman brothers, powerful theatre owners and producers there.
History
Discussions to form the company were held at The Lambs, a famous theater club where Charles and Daniel Frohman were members. The company advertised "Famous Players in Famous Plays" and its first release was the French film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt and Lou Tellegen. Its first actual production was The Count of Monte Cristo, directed by Joseph A. Golden and Edwin S. Porter and starring James O'Neill, the father of dramatist Eugene O'Neill.In 1914, the company purchased the former headquarters of New York City's Ninth Mounted Cavalry unit at 221 West 26th Street in Manhattan. The cavernous brick building made excellent filming space for Zukor, and the modernized site is still used today as Chelsea Television Studios.
Hiring its performers straight from the Broadway stage, Famous Players had an early roster of some of the theater world's biggest names including Marguerite Clark, William Farnum, Gaby Deslys, Hazel Dawn, and H. B. Warner. The company also featured cinema's biggest star of the era, Mary Pickford, and presented theater idol John Barrymore in his first two feature films. The company produced both short and feature-length productions.
In 1916, the company merged with the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company to form Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures.