On this day: Adolph Zukor is born

Almost a century after it was founded, film production and distribution company Paramount Pictures remains a Hollywood giant – a level of success its Hungarian-born Jewish immigrant founder could scarcely have anticipated.

Adolph Zukor was described in his JC obituary as “a founding father of the American film industry”, an accolade that was no exaggeration. From a religious family with several rabbinic relatives, he left Riese at 15 to start a new life in New York as a furrier’s apprentice.

He worked his way up to start his own fur company, and gradually became aware and interested in the fledgling moving pictures industry, establishing what became America’s first cinema chain.

That alone would have left a mark, but in 1912 he recognised a gap in the market and launched the Famous Players Film Company to produce feature films. Several deals and mergers later, the company became Paramount Pictures.