Word: hertz
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Paramount did not go down without a struggle. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with its first & foremost function- making, distributing and exhibiting films. Its troubles were almost wholly financial. And in 1931 its bankers cajoled John Daniel Hertz into taking the Paramount command as chairman of the finance committee. The thickset, sinewy Chicago financier had been making half-hearted attempts to retire since 1926 when he sold his Yellow Cab Manufacturing Co. to General Motors for more than a few millions...
...months Taximan Hertz lopped $39,000,000 from the Paramount budget-$6,000,000 in salaries alone. He wangled reductions in rentals and interest, ordered executives to file expense vouchers-a startling innovation-and marched through the payroll with a big blue pencil. In the film industry, which is notorious for its nepotism, such Hertzian tactics were bound to stir up trouble. And having made enemies right & left, Mr. Hertz finally called for a showdown on his right to hire & fire. He lost. So horsy John Hertz retired to his polo and his racing. Early in 1933, unable...
...confusion of receivership, bankruptcy and endless litigation, it was apparent that John Hertz's heroic efforts had made the Paramount hulk worth raising. The studios were unaffected, theatres were open and by the end of 1933, with the help of Mae West's first hit (She Done Him Wrong), the company was making money. Upshot was that a number of people began to take a hand in the salvage operations...
...John D. Hertz, who, putting all thought of retirement from his head, had in the meantime become a partner in the Manhattan banking house of Lehman Brothers. Another was Floyd Bostwick Odium, who smelled a bargain for his Atlas Corp. And finally there was Harold A. Fortington, financial secretary of Britain's Royal Liverpool group of insurance companies. An exceedingly rich and somewhat mysterious Briton, Mr. Fortington has been in the U. S. since 1920. He has a home in England, an apartment in Manhattan and a 1,400-acre estate in Pawling, N. Y., where...
...clubhouse were John D. Hertz, Jack Dempsey, Postmaster General Farley, Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane and J. H. Louchheim of Philadelphia, who bet $1,000 on his Morpluck and then contrived to lose his pari-mutuel tickets to a pickpocket who got no good out of them. A squad of National Guardsmen used clubs to keep the spectators in the infield under control. The spectators threw chairs at the guardsmen...