Nine months later, the family set sail for America.
1/x
William sold candy on the street. He worked as a newsboy and in a garment factory.
Eventually he had two companies: the Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film Company.
But he didn't like being dependent on someone else for the movies that went on his screens.
He sued, and he won. But it reinforced his feeling that he needed to control his *entire* product — not just distributing and showing movies, but making them too. So he started a studio.
The kid who sold candy on the street was now personally worth $35 million. His companies collectively were worth $300 million — in *1929 dollars.*
Oh. 1929.
That July, his chauffeur was driving him and a friend on Long Island and smashed his Rolls-Royce into another car.
His driver was killed; William's skull was fractured and he spent months in a hospital.
In just a few short Depression months, it was...all gone.
Not smart: He was charged and convicted of obstruction of justice. He did six months in prison.
In 1947, the @nytimes mentioned him offhand in a story and said he was dead. He wasn't dead, just forgotten; they had to run a correction the next day.
When he did die in 1952, few noticed.
He lost control of his movie empire in 1930 — but the money men who took it over kept its name.
William — born Vilmos Fried Fuchs in that Hungarian village in 1879 — had Americanized his last name to...
Fox.
You know the rest — 20th Century Fox went on to be one of the biggest studios in the world.
Today, Disney — which bought 20th Century Fox last year — announced it was changing the name to just "20th Century Studios."
No more "Fox."
washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
(Ironically, the "20th Century" part of the name will now outlive the "Fox" part — despite it being, you know, no longer the 20th century.)