The Skouras Brothers and 20th-Century Fox

While researching my upcoming book on television variety I came upon the interesting fact, related by that inveterate show biz scribe Joe Laurie, that as an early TV experiment, 20th Century-Fox mogul Spyros Skouras (1893-1971) had his theatre chain wired in some sort of closed circuit system. A post on him and his brothers may well have been some time coming if I hadn’t been for that interesting factoid, as well as the convenient fact that I can now include the Skouras family in our recent post on Greek-Americans in show business. And well, we have written about many similar families of theatre-owning brothers, like the Balabans, the Warners, and the Schencks. So here we are.

The other two brothers were Charles (1889-1954) and George (1896-1964). They were a sheep herding family from the Peloponnesian village of Skourhourion, which had a population of fewer than 600 people. They moved to St. Louis in 1910, worked as busboys and bartenders and saved up a substantial grub stake that allowed them to open a nickelodeon, which they named the Olympia. From this they built a substantial regional theatre chain which they sold to the Warner Brothers in 1929, with Skyros assuming the presidency of the Warner Brothers circuit over all. After increasing the profitability of the chain fourfold, Skyros briefly worked at Paramount, then the three brothers were appointed to manage the Fox West Coast Chain in 1932. Skyros took a lead role in the merger of Fox with 20th Century Pictures in 1935, and ran 20th-Century Fox as President from 1942 to 1962, serving as chairman for several years after that. He was the key figure in the introduction of Cinescope in 1953. At their peak the brothers also controlled United Artists Theatres, Todd AO, and several other circuits.

Skyros also owned, or was heavily invested in several shipping lines, and his maritime activities took up the greater part of his time in his latter years. This Greek shipping line thing inevitably makes me think of The Poseidon Adventure, which was indeed a 20th Century-Fox release, and which came out the year after Skyros died. No significance in that, I’m sure, although it sure feels like a Greek God had something to do with it!

For more on the early film industry, where the Skouras brothers got their start, read  Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube — which turned 10 years old this very day! And please keep an eye out forVaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming out from Bear Manor Media this November!