Patrick Anthony Powers | |
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| Born | Patrick Anthony Powers October 8, 1869 Waterford, Ireland |
| Died | July 30, 1948(1948-07-30) (aged 78) New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Occupations | Movie producer and distributor |
Patrick Anthony Powers (October 8, 1869 – July 30, 1948) was anIrish-American producer who was involved in themovie andanimation industry from the 1910s to 1930s. He establishedPowers' Cinephone Moving Picture Company, also known asPowers Picture Plays. His firm, Celebrity Productions, was the first distributor ofWalt Disney'sMickey Mouse cartoons (1928–1929).[1] After one year, Disney split with Powers, who started the animation studioIwerks Studio with Disney's lead animator,Ub Iwerks.[2]
Powers was born inWaterford, Ireland. According to theBuffalo Courier-Express obituary dated August 1, 1948,[3] his sister, Mary Ellen Powers, lived in Buffalo for her entire life.
Powers partnered with Joseph A. Schubert Sr. and sold phonographs from 1900 to 1907, when they formed the Buffalo Film Exchange, 13 Genesee St.[4] which purchased films from producers and rented them tonickelodeons.
In 1910, Powers left Buffalo forNew York City, where he founded the PowersMoving Picture Company,[5] also frequently billed in advertisements and credited in his films as "Powers Picture Plays". Early examples of his studio's releases includeThe Woman Hater (1910) withViolet Heming,Pearl White, andStuart Holmes; the comedyLost in a Hotel (1911); the children's fantasy filmAn Old-Time Nightmare (1911); and theWesternRed Star's Honor (1911).[6]
In 1912, Powers's company merged withCarl Laemmle'sIndependent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) film company and others to create what eventually would becomeUniversal Pictures. He served as treasurer of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Later, in 1916 and 1917, Powers introduced a cartoon series titledFuller Pep, which was similar toPaul Terry'sFarmer Al Falfa series. Nine cartoons were produced.[7]
In 1912, Powers had led his own filmmaking company, part of multiple mergers that createdUniversal Pictures.
Between the 1922 reorganization ofFilm Booking Office of America and October 1923, Powers, as one of the company's new American investors, was effectively in command.
Powers apparently(?[citation needed]) changed the name of Robertson-Cole/FBO to the Powers Studio for a brief period, though there is no record of the company ever having produced or released a film under that banner.[9][10]
In 1925, he moved briefly to take over at thedistribution outfitAssociated Exhibitors.[citation needed]
In 1928,Joseph P. Kennedy andRCA headDavid Sarnoff merged FBO and theKeith-Albee-Orpheum theater circuit to formRKO Radio Pictures.
Powers invested in what remained of thesound film companyDeForest Phonofilm in the spring of 1927.Lee De Forest was on the verge of bankruptcy, due to legal fees from a series of lawsuits against former associatesTheodore Case andFreeman Harrison Owens. DeForest was by that time selling cut-price sound equipment to second-run movie theaters wanting to convert to sound on the cheap.[citation needed]
In June 1927, Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for De Forest's company.[citation needed] In the aftermath of the failed takeover, Powers hired a former DeForest technician,William Garity, to produce a cloned version of the Phonofilmsound recording system, which becamePowers Cinephone. By this time, De Forest was in too weak a financial position[citation needed] to mount a legal challenge against Powers for patent infringement.[11]
In 1928, Powers soldWalt Disney the Powers Cinephone so that Disney could make sound cartoons such asMickey Mouse'sSteamboat Willie (1928).[12] Unable to find a distributor for the sound cartoons, Disney began releasing his cartoons through Powers' company Celebrity Productions (also known as Celebrity Pictures).
After one year of successfulMickey Mouse andSilly Symphonies cartoons, Walt Disney confronted Powers in 1930 about money due to Disney from the distribution deal. Powers responded by signing Disney's head animatorUb Iwerks to an exclusive deal to create his own animation studio.[13][1] TheIwerks Studio was only mildly successful, with cartoon series such asFlip the Frog andWillie Whopper, released throughMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and theComiColor cartoons, released by Celebrity Pictures.[14] Powers withdrew his support from the Iwerks studio in 1936, which subsisted primarily through subcontracted work for other cartoon studios until Iwerks returned to Disney in 1940.[15] As for Disney, he would go on to distribute his cartoons without Powers toColumbia Pictures.
In his lifetime, Powers produced nearly 300 movies, most of them earlysilent films produced at Universal before 1913 or one-reel animated shorts. He is, however, also credited as a producer onErich von Stroheim'sThe Wedding March (1928), along withJesse Lasky andAdolph Zukor. (The latter was a former partner ofMitchell Mark who, like Powers, was a native ofBuffalo, New York.)
Patrick Powers, at age 78, died on July 30, 1948, at theDoctors Hospital in New York City after a brief illness. His August 1 obituary inThe New York Times notes that at the time of his death he was president of the Powers Film Products Company ofRochester, New York.[16] He also had two homes, one in Rochester and another inWestport, Connecticut. His obituary also states that he was survived by his sister Mary Ellen and a daughter, Mrs. Roscoe N. George ofSan Fernando, California.[16] Powers' gravesite is at Holy Cross Cemetery inLackawanna, New York, near Buffalo.
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