Hiram Abrams (22 February 1878 – 15 November 1926) was an early American movie mogul and one of the first presidents of

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

. He was also the first managing director of

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

Biography

Hiram was born in

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropo ...

, the son of a

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

immigrant who became a real estate broker. Hiram Abrams left school at the age of sixteen, sold newspapers, and eventually ended up managing several Portland film theaters. By 1909, he began marketing films, and later became a distributor.

Paramount

Through the motion picture industry, Abrams became acquainted with W. W. Hodkinson and when Hodkinson founded

in 1914, Abrams began serving on the five-man board-of-directors. When Hodkinson denied Paramount partners

Adolph Zukor Adolph Zukor (; hu, Zukor Adolf; January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.Obituary '' Variety'' (June 16, 1976), p. 76. He produced one of America' ...

and Jesse L. Lasky more of the profits, Zukor - in a Machiavellian plot - devised a coup. Zukor and Lasky sold Hodkinson more of their film rights and, using that money, they purchased Paramount stock to, by 1916, gain a majority of it. Then with Abrams, James Steele and William Sherry, they used this majority to vote Hodkinson out. Abrams took over as president and Steele as treasurer. In 1917, Abrams, while in Boston, organized a party for Fatty Arbuckle, Zukor, Lasky, and several others. Eventually, the party, sans Arbuckle, moved to Mishawum Manor, an inn of notorious reputation. Willing women appeared, and later a photographer. A few days later, it became evident the moguls had been caught in a badger game. Daniel H. Coakley, a notoriously crooked Boston lawyer, threatened arrest on moral charges. Studio lawyers were hastily summoned and eventually $100,000 was paid to have the charges dropped. It is likely this escapade cost Abrams his job, as Zukor fired him soon afterwards.

United Artists

Abrams and his new partner, Ben Schulberg, convinced

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, and

D. W. Griffith David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the n ...

to break with their studios and form an independent distributing company; the result was

, set up on 5 February 1919. Abrams was appointed its

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

. During the company's early years, there were serious problems. The United Artists could not produce a continuous flow of films for theaters and suffered serious distribution problems caused by competing firms. Schulberg walked away within two months. Roughly a year later, he sued Abrams, alleging Abrams had breached their partnership agreement. These distribution problems were not solved until

Joseph Schenck Joseph Michael Schenck (; December 25, 1876 – October 22, 1961) was a Russian-born American film studio executive. Life and career Schenck was born to a Jewish family in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russian Empire. He emigrated to New York ...

, Abrams' successor, took over. During Abrams' tenure, however, United Artists did release Griffith's ''

Way Down East ''Way Down East'' is a 1920 American silent romantic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. It is one of four film adaptations of the melodramatic 19th century play ''Way Down East'' by Lottie Blair Parker. There wer ...

'' (1921) and Chaplin's '' The Gold Rush'' (1925). Both were enormously successful, becoming two of the top ten grossing films of the 1920s. Abram's involvement in United Artists, and his life, ended in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

on 15 November 1926, from a sudden cardiac incident, aged 48.''Time'', 29 November 1926

Post-mortem influence

Abrams' influence in the film industry continued for twenty years after his death. While in Boston, around 1912, Abrams had visited Edward Golden, a dentist, to have a tooth pulled. Golden was impressed with Abrams' wealth. Golden looked into the picture business, started promoting films, moved to Hollywood, and became very successful as a low-end (poverty row) producer. His biggest success, ''Hitler's Children'' (1942), came during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

; the film was a sensational quickie based on

Gregor Ziemer Gregor Athalwin Ziemer (May 24, 1899 – August 1982) was an American educator, writer, and correspondent. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1922 with an English degree. Ziemer lived in Germany from 1928 to 1939, ...

's book, ''Education for Death'' (1941). Filmed for $200,000, it grossed $3.25 million.

References

*Francis Russell, ''The Knave of Boston: In all the pack, Dan Coakley Deserved to be Called'', American Heritage, August 1976, 27
Nahma Sandrow, "The Jewish Traveler: Portland"
on hadassah.org

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abrams, Hiram 1878 births 1926 deaths American film studio executives Paramount Pictures executives United Artists Businesspeople from Los Angeles Businesspeople from Portland, Maine 20th-century American businesspeople Jews and Judaism in Portland, Maine