Albert Edward Smith (4 June 1875 – 1 August 1958) was an English stage magician, film director and producer, and a

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

American. He founded

Vitagraph Studios Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, ...

with his business partner James Stuart Blackton in 1897.

Biography

Smith was born 4 June 1874 or 1875 in

Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient Briti ...

, Kent. His family immigrated to the United States when he was still a child. He eventually teamed up with fellow English emigrants

J. Stuart Blackton James Stuart Blackton (January 5, 1875 – August 13, 1941) was a British-American film producer and director of the silent era. One of the pioneers of motion pictures, he founded Vitagraph Studios in 1897. He was one of the first filmmakers to ...

and Ronald Reader to form a touring performance, presenting magic, magic lanterns, drawings, ventriloquism, and recitations. In 1896, they acquired an Edison Vitascope, and in 1897 Blackton and Smith began producing

silent films A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

under the names 'Edison Vitagraph', then the 'Commercial Advertising Bureau'. As 'American Vitagraph', Blackton and Smith came to prominence in 1898 with such films as '' The Battle of Manilla Bay'' and '' Tearing Down the Spanish Flag'' (both

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

shorts inspired by the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

), as well as the short film animation ''

The Humpty Dumpty Circus ''The Humpty Dumpty Circus'' is a lost short stop-motion film directed by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, the Anglo-American founders of Vitagraph Studios. There are no known surviving copies. Albert E. Smith claimed in his 1952 book ''T ...

''. In addition to director and producer, he was also an actor and screenwriter in his films. Smith married three times, including the actress Lucille Smith, who used the screen name

Jean Paige Jean Paige (born Lucille Beatrice O'Hair, July 3, 1895 – December 15, 1990) was an American film actress of the silent era. Early years Paige was born in Paris, Illinois, and raised on her father's farm there. She developed a love for horse ...

. In 1952 Albert E. Smith, along with coauthor Phil A. Koury, published Smith's autobiography, ''Two Reels and a Crank''.Smith, Albert E. in collaboration with Phil A. Koury, ''Two Reels And A Crank'' Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1952. The book gives a detailed account of the founding and evolution of

, and Smith's many adventures turning the crank on Vitagraph films which included filming the assassination of President

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in t ...

, covering the

Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

, and filming

Teddy Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

San Juan Hill San Juan Hill is a series of hills to the east of Santiago, Cuba, running north to south. The area is known as the San Juan Heights or in Spanish ''Alturas de San Juan'' before Spanish–American War of 1898, and are now part of Lomas de San Ju ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

. He gives an insider's account of the

Motion Picture Patents Company The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and terminated seven years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-bra ...

and the General Film Company, both monopolies accused by independent filmmakers of breaking antitrust laws. He describes the expansion of Vitagraph to foreign sales and the building of a laboratory in

Paris, France Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

that quickly expanded to processing four times the amount of film as the US laboratory, up until World War I when their foreign sales all but vanished. 1n 1910, Vitagraph sent a permanent company to California including actors, directors, writers crafts people, and Albert's older brother, W. S. Smith, as business manager. The company shot at locations across the country including Ausable Chasm in upper New York State, and they made the first movie ever shot in the Grand Canyon. In February, 1911 they arrived in Los Angeles and took up housing in a Santa Monica mansion. The frequently overcast skies by the beach quickly led to the establishment of Vitagraph's lot in East Hollywood. The lot is still active in production, and owned by the Walt Disney Company, at the intersection of Prospect and Talmadge Avenues under the name

The Prospect Studios The Prospect Studios (also known as ABC Television Center est'') is a lot containing several television studios located at 4151 Prospect Avenue in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, at the corner of Prospect and Talmadge Street (named i ...

. The last chapter includes a long list of people who worked for Vitagraph. March, 1948, Smith received an

Oscar Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

at the 20th annual awards ceremony. It was presented by

Jean Hersholt Jean Pierre Carl Buron (12 July 1886 – 2 June 1956), known professionally as Jean Hersholt, was a Danish-American actor. He is best known for starring on the radio series '' Dr. Christian'' (1937–1954) and in the film '' Heidi'' (1937).Obitu ...

. The inscription on the base of the Oscar reads: "One of the small group of pioneers whose belief in a new medium, and whose contributions to its development, blazed the trail along which the motion picture has progressed, in their lifetime, from obscurity to world-wide acclaim." After early legal issues with the Edison company,

was very successful in the early silent era, moving to the Flatbush area of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

in 1905. However, it became financially unstable during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and in 1925, Smith sold the company to

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

and retired. Smith died on 1 August 1958 in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Albert E. 1875 births 1958 deaths Cinema pioneers Academy Honorary Award recipients English film directors English film producers American film production company founders Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Naturalized citizens of the United States Vitagraph Studios