Carl Laemmle

 Carl Laemmle, born Karl Läemmle (January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939)

Laemmle was a filmmaker and a founder of Universal Studios. He produced or worked on over 400 films. Regarded as one of the most important of the early film pioneers, Laemmle was born in modern-day Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1884 and worked in Chicago for 20 years before he began buying nickelodeons, eventually expanding into a film distribution service, the Laemmle Film Service. After moving to New York, Carl Laemmle got involved in producing movies, forming Independent Moving Pictures (IMP); the city was the site of many new movie-related businesses. On April 30, 1912, in New York, Laemmle of IMP, Pat Powers of Powers Motion Picture Company, Mark Dintenfass of Champion Film Company, William Swanson of Rex Motion Picture Company, David Horsley of Nestor Film Company, and Charles Baumann and Adam Kessel of the New York Motion Picture Company, merged their studios and incorporated the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, with Laemmle assuming the role of president. They founded the Company with studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1915, the studio moved to 235 acres of land in the San Fernando Valley, California. Carl Laemmle, although having made hundreds of movies in his active years as a producer (1909-1934), is probably best remembered for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of The Opera (1925), both with Lon Chaney Sr. in the title role, and The Man Who Laughs (1928). In the early and mid-1930s, Laemmle's son, Carl Laemmle, Jr., produced a series of commercially successful films for the studio, among them several now-famous horror movies, such as Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) which became highly influential classics. Other films of note included Back Street (1932) and 1936's Show Boat (1936).

Sadly, Carl Laemmle and his son were both forced out of the company in 1936 during the Great Depression. He died from cardiovascular disease on September 24, 1939 in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 72. Laemmle is interred at Home of Peace Memorial Park in East Los Angeles, CA.