Richard A. Rowland (December 8, 1880 – May 12, 1947) was an American studio executive and film producer.

Career

Born in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

, Rowland was the head of

Metro Pictures Metro Pictures Corporation was a motion picture production company founded in early 1915 in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a forerunner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The company produced its films in New York, Los Angeles, and sometimes at leased f ...

Corporation from 1915 to 1920, a studio he founded in 1915 along with

Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...

. Mayer left in 1918 to form his own studio. Metro did most of its productions in Los Angeles and in New York City, where it occasionally leased facilities in

Fort Lee, New Jersey Fort Lee is a borough at the eastern border of Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated along the Hudson River atop the Palisades. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the borough's population was 40,191. As of the 2010 U.S. census, t ...

. Among Metro's productions were: '' The Eternal Question'' (1916) with

Olga Petrova Olga Petrova (born Muriel Harding; 10 May 1884 – 30 November 1977) was a British-American actress, screenwriter and playwright. Life and career Born Muriel Harding in England, she moved to the United States and became a star of vaudeville u ...

, ''The Divorceé'' (1919) with Ethel Barrymore, and ''What People Will Say?'' (1915) directed by Alice Guy-Blache. In 1919, when Charlie Chaplin,

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 na ...

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thi ...

, and

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 ...

formed

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 stud ...

to protect their work and control their careers, Rowland, then head of Metro Studios, famously remarked that "the lunatics have taken over the asylum". In 1920, Rowland sold Metro to

Marcus Loew Marcus Loew (May 7, 1870 - September 5, 1927) was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loew's Theatres and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio (MGM). Life and career Loew was born in New York City, ...

, and subsequently became an executive at

Fox Film Corporation The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film C ...

. Loew was acquiring studios to help supply product to his theater chain. A few years later, Loew merged Metro with recently acquired

Goldwyn Pictures Corporation Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company that operated from 1916 to 1924 when it was merged with two other production companies to form the major studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was founded on November 19, 1 ...

to form

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 ...

(MGM). Rowland played a key role in the setting of standards and improving the speed of movie projection to improve the quality of the experience as a member of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, later the

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

(SMPTE).

Later years and death

Later in life, he was a professor at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he wrote several academic articles on the role that film played in modern culture. In one of his essays, titled ''American Classic'', he argues that

Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...

films are classics that will stand the test of time. Rowland died on May 12, 1947 in New York City. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Rowland has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1541

Vine Street Vine Street is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north–south between Franklin Avenue and Melrose Avenue. The intersection with Hollywood Boulevard was once a symbol of Hollywood itself. The famed intersection fell into d ...

Filmography

References

*James Mottram, ''The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood'' (Faber, 2006) *Tino Balio, ''The American Film Industry: a Reader'' revised 2nd Edition (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) pp. 319 *Wes D. Gehring, ''The Marx Brothers: a Bio-Bibliography'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1987) pp 177. *Richard Rowland, 'American Classic', ''Hollywood Quarterly'' (April 1947) Vol. 2, No. 3

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rowland, Richard A. Film producers from Pennsylvania American film studio executives American film production company founders Columbia University faculty Businesspeople from Pittsburgh 1880 births 1947 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople