Patrick Anthony Powers (October 8, 1870 – July 30, 1948) was an American businessman who was involved in the

movie A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

and animation industry of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s as a distributor and producer. His firm, Celebrity Productions, was the first distributor of

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

's '' Mickey Mouse'' cartoons (1928–29). After one year, Disney split with Powers, who started another animation studio with Disney's lead animator,

Ub Iwerks Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks ( ), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentiou ...

Early career

Powers was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. According to the ''

Buffalo Courier-Express The ''Buffalo Courier-Express'' was a morning newspaper in Buffalo, New York. It ceased publication on September 19, 1982. History The ''Courier-Express'' was created in 1926 by a merger of the ''Buffalo Daily Courier'' and the ''Buffalo Morning ...

'' obituary dated August 1, 1948,''Buffalo Courier-Express'', August 1, 1948. his sister, Mary Ellen Powers, lived in Buffalo for her entire life. Banner advertisement for 1911 films of Powers Moving Picture Company

Banner advertisement for 1911 films of Powers Moving Picture Company

Powers partnered with Joseph A. Schubert Sr. and sold phonographs from 1900 to 1907, when they formed the

Buffalo Film Exchange Buffalo most commonly refers to: * Bubalina, including most "Old World" buffalo, such as water buffalo * Bison, including the American buffalo * Buffalo, New York Buffalo or buffaloes may also refer to: Animals * Bubalina, a subtribe of the t ...

, which purchased films from producers and rented them to nickelodeons. In 1910, Powers left Buffalo for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, where he founded the Powers Moving Picture Company, also frequently billed in advertisements and credited in his films as "Powers Picture Plays". Early examples of his studio's releases include '' The Woman Hater'' (1910) with

Violet Heming Violet Heming (27 January 1895 – 4 July 1981) was an English stage and screen actress. Her name sometimes appeared as Violet Hemming in newspapers. Biography Born Violet Hemming in Leeds, Yorkshire, she was the daughter of Alfred Hemming w ...

Pearl White Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938) was an American stage and film actress. She began her career on the stage at the age of six, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular serials. Dubbed the "Queen of ...

, and

Stuart Holmes Stuart Holmes (born Joseph Liebchen; March 10, 1884 – December 29, 1971) was an American actor and sculptor whose career spanned seven decades. He appeared in almost 450 films between 1909 and 1964, sometimes credited as Stewart Holmes. Biog ...

; the comedy '' Lost in a Hotel'' (1911); the children's fantasy film '' An Old-Time Nightmare'' (1911); and the

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

''Red Star's Honor'' (1911). In 1912, Powers' company merged with

Carl Laemmle Carl Laemmle (; born Karl Lämmle; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a film producer and the co-founder and, until 1934, owner of Universal Pictures. He produced or worked on over 400 films. Regarded as one of the most important o ...

Independent Moving Pictures Company The Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) was a motion picture studio and production company founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle. The company was based in New York City, with production facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In 1912, IMP merged with ...

(IMP) film company and others to create what eventually would become

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

. He served as treasurer of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Later, in 1916 and 1917, Powers introduced a cartoon series titled ''Fuller Pep'', which was similar to Paul Terry's ''

Farmer Al Falfa Farmer Al Falfa (also known as Farmer Alfalfa),
at

Film Booking Office of America Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), registered as FBO Pictures Corp., was an American film studio of the Silent film, silent era, a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole, an ...

and October 1923, Powers, as one of the company's new American investors, was effectively in command. Powers had previously led his own filmmaking company, part of the multiple merger that created

in 1912. Powers apparently 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. In 1925 he moved briefly to take over at the

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

outfit

Associated Exhibitors Associated Exhibitors was an American film distribution company active during the silent era. The company did not produce its own pictures but released productions by independent producers, handling a mixture of low-budget and more prestigious fi ...

. In 1928,

Joseph P. Kennedy Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He is known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children and was the patriarch of the Irish-American Ken ...

and

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

head David Sarnoff merged FBO and the

Keith-Albee-Orpheum The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit. Hist ...

theater circuit to form

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...

. Powers invested in what remained of the

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

company DeForest 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 associates

Theodore Case Theodore Willard Case (December 12, 1888 – May 13, 1944) was an American chemist and inventor known for the invention of the Movietone sound-on-film system. Early life and education Theodore Willard Case was born in 1888 in Auburn, New Yo ...

and

Freeman Harrison Owens Freeman Harrison Owens (July 20, 1890 – December 9, 1979) was an early American filmmaker and aerial photographer. Biography was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the only child of Charles H. Owens and Christabel Harrison. He attended Pine Blu ...

. DeForest was by that time selling cut-price sound equipment to second-run movie theaters wanting to convert to sound on the cheap. In June 1927, Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for De Forest's company. In the aftermath of the failed takeover, Powers hired a former DeForest technician, William Garity, to produce a cloned version of the Phonofilm

sound recording Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording ...

system, which became Powers Cinephone. By this time, De Forest was in too weak a financial position to mount a legal challenge against Powers for patent infringement.

Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks

In 1928, Powers sold

the Powers Cinephone so that Disney could make sound cartoons such as Mickey Mouse's ''

Steamboat Willie ''Steamboat Willie'' is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions. The cartoon ...

'' (1928). 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 successful '' Mickey Mouse'' and ''

Silly Symphonies ''Silly Symphony'' is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the ''Silly Symphonies'' were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces ...

'' cartoons, Walt Disney confronted Powers in 1930 about money due to Disney from the distribution deal. Powers responded by signing Disney's head animator

to an exclusive deal to create his own animation studio. The

Iwerks Studio Iwerks Studio was an animation studio headed by animator Ub Iwerks. Financing Iwerks was working for Walt Disney when he accepted a contract with Disney's former distributor, Pat Powers, to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his o ...

was only mildly successful, with cartoon series such as ''

Flip the Frog Flip the Frog is an animated cartoon character created by American animator Ub Iwerks. He starred in a series of cartoons produced by Celebrity Pictures and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1930 to 1933. The series had many recurring char ...

'' and ''

Willie Whopper Willie Whopper is an animated cartoon character created by American animator Ub Iwerks. The Whopper series was the second from the Iwerks Studio to be produced by Pat Powers and distributed through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 14 shorts were produced in ...

'', released through

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

, and the ''

ComiColor The ComiColor Cartoon series is a series of 25 animated short subjects produced by Ub Iwerks from 1933 to 1936. The series was the last produced by Iwerks Studio; after losing distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934, the Iwerks studio's senior co ...

'' cartoons, released by Celebrity Pictures. The Iwerks studio closed in 1936 and Iwerks subsequently returned to Disney. As for Disney, he would go on to distribute his cartoons without Powers to

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

. In his lifetime, Powers produced nearly 300 movies, most of them early

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, 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) ...

s produced at Universal before 1913 or one-reel animated shorts. He is, however, also credited as a producer on Erich von Stroheim's '' The Wedding March'' (1928), along with

Jesse Lasky Jesse Louis Lasky (September 13, 1880 – January 13, 1958) was an American pioneer motion picture producer who was a key founder of what was to become Paramount Pictures, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr. Early life Born in to ...

and Adolph Zukor. (The latter was a former partner of

Mitchell Mark Mitchel H. Mark a.k.a. Mitchell Mark a.k.a. Mitchell H. Mark (born as Mitchel Henry Mark) (1868 – March 20, 1918) was a pioneer of motion picture exhibition in the United States. Early life Mitchel Henry Mark was born in 1868 in Richmond Virgi ...

who, like Powers, was a native of

Death

Patrick Powers, at age 77, died on July 30, 1948, at the Doctors Hospital in New York City after a brief illness. His August 1 obituary in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' notes that at the time of his death he was president of the Powers Film Products Company of

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...

.''The New York Times'', August 1, 1948. He also had two homes, one in Rochester and another in

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

. His obituary also states that he was survived by his sister Mary Ellen and a daughter, Mrs. Roscoe N. George of

San Fernando, California San Fernando ( Spanish for " St. Ferdinand") is a general-law city in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It is bordered on all sides by the City of Los Angeles. As of the 20 ...

. Powers' gravesite is at Holy Cross Cemetery in

Lackawanna, New York Lackawanna is a city in Erie County, New York, United States, just south of the city of Buffalo in western New York State. The population was 19,949 at the 2020 census. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in New York, growing in populat ...

, near Buffalo.

References

Sources

* Richard B. Jewell with Vernon Harbin, ''The RKO Story'' (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982) * Betty Lasky, ''RKO: The Biggest Little Major of Them All'' (Santa Monica, Calif.: Roundtable, 1989)

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Powers, Pat 1870 births 1948 deaths American film production company founders American film studio executives Irish emigrants to the United States People from County Waterford Businesspeople from Buffalo, New York Film producers from New York (state) NBCUniversal people