The Jewish Movie Moguls who built Hollywood

An exhibition at Los Angeles’ Academy Museum of Motion Pictures charts the remarkable story of how Jewish immigrants established the Hollywood studio system.

As outsiders escaping anti semitism and pogroms in Eastern Europe these soon to be movie moguls settled on the west coast in the early years of the 20th century. A number had experience in running Nickelodeons, a cheap forerunner to movie houses , looked down upon by conventional theatre goers who preferred live action entertainment.

The stories of entrepreneurs such as the Warner Brothers, Louis D Mayer , Samuel Goldwyn, William Fox, Carl Laemmie and Adolph Zukor are remarkably similar.

Escaping a monopoly over filmmaking equipment built by East Coast industrialist and inventor Thomas Edison , the moguls relocated three thousand miles west and set up their own film making system which helped create a cinematic image of the American dream which also reflected their own dreams of assimilation. Into the mainstream .

The exhibition tells the story of how the moguls still encountered hostility and prejudice despite their key role in the invention of what became known as Hollywoodland.

Images courtesy of Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

To find out more about this fascinating story, check out Pilot’s two part documentary, Empire Builders: Los Angeles: Stories from
the City, HERE and screen it on our channels on Vimeo HERE and Amazon HERE