Carl Laemmle - Biography

Biography

On April 30, 1912, in New York, Carl Laemmle of IMP, Pat Powers of Powers Motion Picture Company, Mark Dintenfass of Champion Film Company, William Swanson of Rex Motion Picture Company, David Horsley of Nestor Film Company and Charles Baumann and Adam Kessel of the New York Motion Picture Company merged their studios and the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated. They founded the Universal Motion Picture Manufacturing Company in 1912, with studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey where many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century.In 1915, the studio moved to 235 acres (0.95 km2) of land in the San Fernando Valley, California..

Universal maintained two East Coast offices:

The first was located at 1600 Broadway, New York City. This building, initially known as The Studebaker building, was razed around 2004-5.

The second location to house Universal's executive offices was located at 730 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Many years later, 445 Park Avenue was where Universal's executives would hang their hats.

Laemmle purchased the home of film pioneer Thomas Ince on Benedict Canyon Drive, Beverly Hills, California. The house was razed in the early 1940s. There is conjecture as to the specific address of the home; some sources list it as 1031, others as 1232. Laemmle also maintained a large apartment for himself and his two children, Rosabelle Laemmle (later Bergerman) and Carl Jr., at 465 West End Avenue, New York City – one block off Riverside Drive and the Hudson River.

In 1916, Laemmle sponsored the $3,000.00, 3 foot tall, solid silver Universal Trophy for the winner of the annual Universal race at the Uniontown Speedway board track in southwestern Pennsylvania. Universal filmed each race from 1916 to 1922.

In the early and mid-1930s, Laemmle's son, Carl Laemmle, Jr., produced a series of expensive and commercially unsuccessful films for the studio, although there were occasional successes such as 1932's Back Street, 1936's Show Boat, and Universal's famous collection of 1930s horror classics. Carl and Carl Jr. were forced out of the company in 1936.

Laemmle remained connected to his home town of Laupheim throughout his life, by financial support and also by sponsoring hundreds of Jews from Laupheim and Württemberg to emigrate from Nazi Germany to the U.S. (which meant paying both emigration and immigration fees), thus saving them from the Holocaust. In order to ensure and facilitate their immigration, Laemmle contacted American authorities, members of the House of Representatives and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He also intervened in the fate of the refugees on board the SS St. Louis who were ultimately sent back from Havana to Europe in 1939.

Following his death from cardiovascular disease on September 24, 1939, in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 72, Laemmle was entombed in the Chapel Mausoleum at Home of Peace Cemetery.

Asked how to pronounce his name, he told The Literary Digest, "The name means little lamb, and is pronounced as if it were spelled 'lem-lee'."

The poet Ogden Nash observed the following about Laemmle's habit of giving his son and nephews the top executive positions in his studios:

"Uncle Carl Laemmle
Has a very large faemmle."

The main character in the 1949 novel The Dream Merchants by Harold Robbins, a former Universal Studios employee, is based upon Carl Laemmle.

His niece, Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle, known professionally as Carla Laemmle, appeared in several films until her retirement from acting at the end of the 1930s.

Laemmle was used as a character in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.