William Fox, ne Vilmos Fuchs.

William Fox, ne Vilmos Fuchs.

william fox, born 1879
pioneer of the movie industry

William Fox was one of the pioneers of the US movie industry. In 1880, at the age of nine months, he emigrated with his Jewish parents from Tolcsva Hungary to New York City. He dropped out of school at the age of eleven, and after stints as a fabric cutter and newsboy he set up in 1903 an an entertainment arcade with coin-operated machines. He turned the upstairs room into a cinema, and explanded this into a network of movie theatres across the USA. He also embarked on film production, creating Fox Films. He was bankrupted by the 1929 crash, and Fox Films was taken over to form Twentieth Century Fox. This life story of William Fox is by the author Upton Sinclair, who is renowned for his book The Jungle which exposed the dire conditions of the Chicago meat packing industry. We recommend the first 100 pages, which give a vivid account of Fox’s life.

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