Edwin Thanhouser

Infobox Actor
name = Edwin Thanhouser


birthdate = birth date|1865|11|11
birthplace = Baltimore, Maryland
deathdate = death date and age|1956|3|21|1865|11|11
deathplace = New York City, New York
spouse = Gertrude Thanhouser
yearsactive = 1910 - 1917

Edwin Thanhouser (November 11, 1865-March 21, 1956) was an actor, businessman, and film producer, most notable as a founder of the Thanhouser Company, along with his wife Gertrude Thanhouser and brother-in-law Lloyd Lonergan.

Biography

Thanhouser was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1893, he was impressed by Alessandro Salvini, a well known orator and actor, and joined Salvini's traveling company. Thanhouser traveled around the United States and Eastern Canada with various companies, after which he formed his own stock companies in Atlanta and Milwaukee. In Milwaukee he managed the Academy of Music, which became a very profitable venture.

On February 8, 1900, Thanhouser married Gertrude Homan, an actress whom he met the preceding summer. Success with the Milwaukee theatre and fortunate speculation in the securities market gave Edwin Thanhouser sufficient capital to lease the Bush Temple Theatre in Chicago, after which transaction his family moved to Chicago in 1907. In 1909, Thanhouser and his family moved to New Rochelle, New York, where he leased space in an old wooden skating rink to start the Thanhouser Company. This pioneering movie studio released its first commercial film on March 15, 1910.

It was Thanhouser himself who brought actress Florence La Badie on board with his company. She would, from 1911 to 1917, be the companies most prominent star. In spring 1912, he sold out the film company to a combine headed by Charles J. Hite and retired from the motion picture business, taking his family on a grand tour of Europe, where he remained until World War I broke out in August 1914. He returned to America about the same time that Charles Hite was killed in an automobile accident. Thanhouser then resumed his old position as managing head of the company. He did this early in 1915, but as the film industry, its practices, and the tastes of the public had changed since he had last been in films in 1912, Edwin Thanhouser's re-entry did not duplicate the success he had scored in earlier years. He remained until early 1918, when the Thanhouser Film Corporation was liquidated, with several hundred thousand dollars remaining on deposit in various accounts. [Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, Q. David Bowers, Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc., August 2001.]

Edwin Thanhouser kept active in securities investments and enjoyed collecting art in his later years.

External links

* [http://www.thanhouser.org/people/thanhousere.htm Edwin Thanhouser biography entry on Thanhouser website]

References