Word: goldenson
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Leonard H. Goldenson--President, United Paramount Theatres, Inc. Helped organize Hollywood U.S.O. caravans during...
...biggest U.S. movie exhibitor, United Paramount Theatres, Inc. has been hard hit by television. Unable to lick the enemy, United Paramount's 45-year-old President Leonard H. Goldenson last week decided to join it. He made a $25 million stock-swapping deal to buy American Broadcasting Co., third biggest television-radio network. Only two weeks before, Edward J. Noble, ABC's biggest stockholder (58%), had stated firmly that he would not sell. But Paramount had upped its offer enough to change his mind...
...deal has still to be approved by FCC and the stockholders of both companies; it will probably be months before it is finally okayed. If all goes well, Goldenson will combine ABC's 294 affiliated stations with Paramount's 950 theaters (600 wholly owned, 350 partly owned), in a new colossus of the U.S. entertainment industry...
...swung the deal got his first taste of show business as a boy in Scottdale, Pa., where his father was part owner of the town's two theaters. Leonard Goldenson wanted to get into the movie industry on finishing Harvard Law School in 1930, but got turned down at Paramount's front door. He came in through the back, as a lawyer, when he was hired to reorganize Paramount's New England division. Paramount made him assistant operations boss, put him in charge of theaters in 1941. Last year, when Paramount's theater and picture-making...
...Goldenson is keeping mum about future plans,but his deal has some obvious possibilities. He is already installing big-screen TV facilities in 27 Paramount theaters, could tie them in with ABC programs. With his potent bargaining force as the country's biggest exhibitor, he might also break the movie-producing industry's blockade against new films for TV. A likely solution: use TV for "second-run" showings of new pictures after first-run showings at Paramount theaters...