William Nicholas Selig (March 14, 1864 – July 15, 1948) was a pioneer of the American motion picture industry. In 1896 he created one of the first film production companies,
Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago. Selig produced a string of commercially successful films in the early years of the film industry. His ''
The Tramp and the Dog'' (1896) is considered the first
narrative film
Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or feature ...
set in Chicago. Selig claimed to have made the first narrative film shot in Los Angeles, ''
The Count of Monte Cristo'', and, in 1909, established what may have been the first permanent L.A. studio, in
Edendale, Los Angeles
Edendale is a historical name for a district in Los Angeles, California, northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, in what is known today as Echo Park, Los Feliz and Silver Lake.
In the opening decades of the 20th century, in the era of silent movies ...
. He also produced the first
Wizard of Oz film in 1910, the first U.S. company to shoot a two-reel film, ''Damon and Pythias'' (1908), and the first true
serial, ''
The Adventures of Kathlyn'' (1913–1914).
Early life
William Nicholas Selig was born March 14, 1864, at 10 Kramer Street, Chicago, Illinois, to Antonia (
née Linsky) and Joseph Franz Selig,
PDF
a Bohemian-Polish immigrant family, in a predominantly Polish section of Chicago and attended primary school there.
Early career
William N. Selig entered show business as “Selig the Conjurer” and morphed into the impresario of “Selig’s Mastodon Minstrels,” which featured Bert Williams, along with “five whites, four blacks, and a ‘Mexican’ who drove the horse team and played trombone” and then into the owner of the Selig Polyscope Company that made and licensed projection equipment.
Selig started as a furniture upholsterer. Selig apprenticed to a magician, and, still a teen, toured the Midwest as a
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
performer in his own minstrel show. He later settled in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
and toured the state as “Selig the Conjurer”.
One of the actors was
Bert Williams
Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being ...
, who went on to become a leading
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
entertainer.
As a
magician, Selig called himself "''
Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...
'' Selig", later awarding himself the title of
''Colonel''.
Multiscope and Film Company
A mechanic to whom Selig turned for help had unknowingly made a duplicate Cinématographe for a travelling Lumière operator, and Selig's camera and Polyscope projector were based on the drawings of the Lumière machine.
In 1894, at the Texas State Fair in
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
, Selig met employees from
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
’s laboratory who were demonstrating the
Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...
.
He returned to Chicago, opened a small photography studio and began investigating how he might make his own moving pictures without paying a patent fee to Edison's company. Selig reportedly found a metalworker who had unwittingly repaired a
Lumière brothers motion picture camera and, with his help, developed a working system. With machinist Andrew Schutsek, he produced a similarity to the
cinématographe.
[
] In 1896, Selig founded the
Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago, producing not only motion pictures but also film equipment, as one of the first
motion picture studios in America, making
actuality shorts,
travelogue
Travelogue may refer to:
Genres
* Travel literature, a record of the experiences of an author travelling
* Travel documentary
A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or ...
s and
industrial film Sponsored film, or ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger, is a film made by a particular sponsor for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited t ...
s for Chicago businesses.
Multiscope & Film Company gained a five year franchise in 1895 with the Edison Vitagraph Company of Chicago and New York to show the first moving pictures in the State of Minnesota and gained rights from the holder of Wisconsin’s franchisee to operate the first Vitagraph moving picture shows in Burlington and Elkhorn, making Burlington the first place outside of the largest metropolitan American cities in which the Vitascope was exhibited.
In 1896,
[
] in a loft, at 43 Peck Court in
Burlington, Wisconsin
Burlington is a city in Racine and Walworth counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, with the majority of the city located in Racine County. The population of the city was 11,047 as of the 2020 census.
History
Prior to the arrival of Europea ...
, Selig co-founded his first film company, the Multiscope and Film Company,
[
][
] and his made first film, ''
The Tramp and the Dog''.
[
]
Selig also copied the productions of others, like other pioneer companies, for his sale, through his own catalogues, his activity brought the attention of the lawyers of Edison.
Selig made films in the Southwest.
Al-Vista panoramic camera
Multiscope and Film Company produced, in
Burlington, Wisconsin
Burlington is a city in Racine and Walworth counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, with the majority of the city located in Racine County. The population of the city was 11,047 as of the 2020 census.
History
Prior to the arrival of Europea ...
, the first successful commercial 180-degree panoramic camera made in quantity, the Al-Vista, later a series of panoramic still cameras.
[
][
]
Selig Polyscope Company
![Selig studio in Chicago](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Selig_studio_in_Chicago.jpg)
In November 1900, Selig incorporated the
Selig Polyscope Company.
[
][
] By 1904, he focused on slapstick comedies and minstrel-comic scenes, and producing the first Westerns of
Broncho Billy Anderson
Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (born Maxwell Henry Aronson; March 21, 1880 – January 20, 1971) was an American actor, writer, film director, and film producer, who was the first star of the Western film genre. He was a founder and star ...
, the later co-founder of
Essanay Studios.
In 1909, Selig was the first producer
[
] to expand filmmaking operations to the
West Coast, where he set up studio facilities in the
Edendale area of
Los Angeles
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 ...
with director
Francis Boggs. Southern California's weather allowed outdoor filming for most of the year and offered varied geography and settings which could stand in for far-flung locations around the world. Los Angeles also seemed to offer geographical isolation from Edison's
Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a cartel which Selig later reluctantly joined. ''
The Sergeant'', a Western short shot in Yosemite and produced and directed by Boggs for the Selig Polyscope Company was released in September 1910.
[
][
]
![Selig Polyscope Company studio ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Selig_Polyscope_Company_studio_ca._1910.jpg)
In 1911, Boggs was murdered by a Japanese gardener employed by the company. Selig was shot and wounded in the arm while trying to defend him.
Settling with Edison, Selig joined the
Motion Picture Patents Company and in 1913 joined with Vitagraph, Lubin and Essanay to form the
V-L-S-E, Incorporated distribution company; prominent productions included ''Hunting Big Game in Africa'' 1909, a studio-made film of Theodore Roosevelt's exploits on safari; ''The Coming of Columbus'' 1912, a three-reeler which won a medal from
Pope Pius X; and ''The Adventures of Kathlyn'' 1913, the first serial with Kathlyn Williams.
Selig had studios in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and the
Edendale, Los Angeles
Edendale is a historical name for a district in Los Angeles, California, northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, in what is known today as Echo Park, Los Feliz and Silver Lake.
In the opening decades of the 20th century, in the era of silent movies ...
, and produced animal pictures, with the Selig's Jungle Zoo near
Eastlake Park growing to the then-largest collection of 700+ wild animals.
Selig produced almost a thousand movies and was responsible for developing new film talent such as
Roscoe Arbuckle along with early cowboy western stars
Gilbert M. "Bronco Billy" Anderson and
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western films between 1909 and 1935. He appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent films. He w ...
. He also popularized the cliffhanger format through the
serial (film)
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, gene ...
''The Adventures of Kathlyn'' (1913). ''The Spoilers'' (1914), a western set in Alaska, is often cited as his greatest success.
In 1915, the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
nullified all of Edison's MPPC patents, breaking the cartel and allowing increased competition.
Shakespeare publicity
![Shakespeare trial 1916](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Shakespeare_trial_1916.jpg)
In 1916, Selig sued
George Fabyan
"Colonel" George Fabyan (1867 – 1936) was a millionaire businessman who founded a private research laboratory.[Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...]
was the real author of Shakespeare's work, a popular claim at the time. He had already obtained an injunction stopping the publication of a book by Fabyan on the subject, in which Fabyan promoted the discovery of ciphers in Shakespeare's plays, identified in his private laboratory
Fabyan Villa. Selig was hoping to capitalize on the celebrations organized for the upcoming 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, scheduled for April 1916. A
Cook County
Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...
Circuit Court judge, Richard Tuthill, found against Shakespeare. He determined that the ciphers identified by Fabyan's analyst
Elizabeth Wells Gallup were authentic and that Francis Bacon was therefore the author of the works. Damages of $5,000 were awarded to Fabyan for the interference with the publication of the book. In the ensuing uproar, Tuthill rescinded his decision, and another judge, Judge Frederick A. Smith, dismissed the ruling. It was later suggested by the press that the case was concocted by both parties for publicity, since Selig and Fabyan were known to be old friends. An official of the Selig Company was quoted as saying, about the initial loss of the case, "Isn't that sad. That will be about nine million columns of publicity, won't it?"
After Selig Polyscope
![The Jungle Goddess (1922) - 4](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/The_Jungle_Goddess_%281922%29_-_4.jpg)
At great expense, Selig created a zoo in
East Los Angeles, stocked with hundreds of animals he had collected for his studio's jungle pictures and cliffhangers. He also moved his studio there. Meanwhile,
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
began cutting into profits from Selig Polyscope's extensive European operations and, as the war ended, the film industry moved towards more expensively produced full-length feature films. Under these circumstances, Selig Polyscope was unable to compete and closed in 1918.
Nonetheless, Selig had great hopes for the zoo. Over thirty years before
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 ...
built
Disneyland
Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envision ...
, Selig made plans to expand it into a major amusement park and resort called Selig Zoo Park, with many mechanical rides, a hotel, a large swimming area, theaters and restaurants, believing thousands of visitors a day would flock to the location. As head zookeeper he hired
Cy DeVry, who had been director of the
Lincoln Park Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo, also known as Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens, is a zoo in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois. The zoo was founded in 1868, making it the fourth oldest zoo in North America. It is also one of a few free admission zoos in the Unit ...
in Chicago. However, only a single carousel was ever built and the crowds never came. A business which ten years earlier had been one of the most prolific and widely known movie studios in the world had, in effect, become a struggling zoo on the other side of downtown Los Angeles from Hollywood's booming post-World War I film industry. Although for a time he was able to rent space on the lot for wild animal "location" shooting and other projects, this side of the business quickly dwindled into an animal rental service.
Selig did some work as an independent producer and expedition promoter into the 1930s, but ultimately lost the zoo and his assets during the
Great Depression. He then became a literary agent, re-selling story rights to film properties he had produced or acquired years before.
Partial filmography
see:
:fr:William Selig
![The Adventures of Kathlyn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/The_Adventures_of_Kathlyn.JPG)
*
The Tramp and the Dog, 1896
* Soldiers at Play, 1898
*
Something Good – Negro Kiss
''Something Good – Negro Kiss'' is a short silent film from 1898 of a couple kissing and holding hands. It is believed to depict the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is known for departing from the prevalent and purely ste ...
1898
* Chicago Police Parade, 1901
* Dewey Parade, 1901
* Gans-McGovern Fight, 1901
* A Hot Time on a Bathing Beach, 1903
* Business Rivalry, 1903
* Chicago Fire Run, 1903
* Chicago Firecats on Parade, 1903
* The Girl in Blue, 1903
* Trip Around The Union Loop, 1903
* View of State Street, 1903
* Humpty Dumpty, 1904
* The Tramp Dog, 1904
* The Grafter, 1907
*
The Count of Monte Cristo, 1908
* Damon and Pythias, 1908
*
The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays
''The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays'' was an early attempt to bring L. Frank Baum's Oz books to the motion picture screen. It was a mixture of live actors, hand-tinted magic lantern slides, and film. Baum himself would appear as if he were giving a ...
, 1908
* Hunting Big Game in Africa, 1909
*
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz afte ...
, 1910
* Lost in the Arctic, 1911
* Life on the Border, 1911
* The Coming of Columbus, 1911
* Brotherhood of Man, 1912
* Kings Forest, 1912
* War Time Romance, 1912
*
The Adventures of Kathlyn 1913
* Arabia, the Equine Detective, 1913
* The Sheriff of Yavapai County, 1913
*
The Spoilers, 1914
* A Black Sheep, 1915
* The Crisis, 1915
* House of a Thousand Candles, 1915
* The Man from Texas, 1915
* The Range Girl and the Cowboy, 1915
* The Garden of Allah, 1916
* The Ne'er-Do-Well (1916). re-released in 1921.
* In the Days of Daring, 1916. directed by and starring
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western films between 1909 and 1935. He appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent films. He w ...
, re-released as ''Days of Daring'' in 1920 by
Aywon Film Corporation.
* The City of Purple Dreams, 1918
* Little Orphant Annie, 1918
*
The Lost City (
it) (
Serial film
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, gene ...
, 1920, Selig Polyscope Company &
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 ...
)
* Sic-Em (1920, William N. Selig Productions)
* The Fighting Stranger (1921, William N. Selig Productions &
Canyon Pictures Corporation (
pt))
* The Hunger of the Blood (1921, William N. Selig Productions &
Canyon Pictures Corporation (
pt))
* The Last Chance (1921, William N. Selig Productions &
Canyon Pictures Corporation (
pt))
* The Struggle (1921, William N. Selig Productions &
Canyon Pictures Corporation (
pt))
* The Raiders (1921, William N. Selig Productions &
Canyon Pictures Corporation (
pt))
* Kazan (1921, William N. Selig Productions)
*
:pt:Miracles of the Jungle (1921, Selig Studios &
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 ...
)
* The Better Man (1921, Selig-Rork Productions)
* The Fighting Breed (1921, Selig-Rork Productions)
* The Shadow of Ligthning Ridge (1921, Selig-Rork Productions)
* The Rosary (1922, Selig-Rork Productions)
* Pals in Blue (1924, Col. Wm. N. Selig)
*
The Jungle Goddess (
pt)(1922, Col. Wm. N. Selig &
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 ...
)
Legacy
![Selig Studios](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Selig_Studios.jpg)
For his contributions to the motion picture industry, William Selig has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6116 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1947, Selig and several other early movie producers and directors shared a special
Academy Honorary Award to acknowledge their role in building the film industry.
Personal life
Selig married Mary Holdeness Pinkham (1875–1956).
[
][
] Selig retired and ceased most film production in 1918, due to the same poor health that had sent him to California in 1893. Selig continued some independent film production and sponsored mountaineering expeditions and explorers.
William Selig died on July 15, 1948. His ashes were stored in the Hall of Memory Columbarium at the
Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory is a crematory and columbarium located at 1605 South Catalina Street, Los Angeles, in the U.S. state of California, in the historic West Adams District a short distance southwest of Downtown. It is beside Angelus- ...
in Los Angeles.
See also
*
Internationale Camera Actiengesellschaft Polyscope cameras
References
External links
*
*
PDFWilliam Selig papers Margaret Herrick Library
The Margaret Herrick Library, located in Beverly Hills, California, is the main repository of print, graphic and research materials of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The library contains a digital repository and has hi ...
,
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...
Selig Zoo and Movie Studioin Lincoln Heights LA
William Nicholas Seligat Virtual History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Selig, William
1864 births
1948 deaths
Academy Honorary Award recipients
Vaudeville performers
American film studio executives
American film production company founders
Cinema pioneers
American people of German descent
Male actors from Chicago
Burials at Chapel of the Pines Crematory