Word: rko
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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With another swish of the revolving door, RKO last week lost its two remaining top officers and was left with a board of directors of only two members. Just three weeks ago, Chairman Arnold Grant forced the resignations of President Ralph Stolkin and one director who had been in & out of trouble for their punchboard and other activities (TIME, Oct. 27) before they bought control of RKO from Howard Hughes. Last week Chairman Grant, who had been hired at $2,000 a week by the new owners to run the company, turned in his resignation. Out with him went...
Because of "a mass of unfavorable publicity," four top men in RKO's new management stepped down last week. They...
...frequently tangled with the Federal Trade Commission and Better Business Bureau because of their punchboard promotions, mail-order life insurance and other past activities (TIME, Oct. 27). ¶Director William Gorman, the board representative of Oilman Ray Ryan, another member of the Stolkin-Koolish syndicate which bought control of RKO a month ago. Ryan's name had cropped up in the Kefauver hearings when it developed that he and Racketeer Frank Costello had an interest in the same oil lease. ¶Sidney Korshak, a Chicago lawyer who had helped out in the syndicate's negotiations with Howard Hughes...
Though Stolkin. Koolish and Ryan keep their big stock interests in RKO, Board Chairman Arnold Grant, who insisted on the resignations, said that henceforward they would be considered "no more, no less than ordinary stockholders." Grant hopes to fill the empty posts quickly "with men of outstanding caliber." They will have to be outstanding to pull RKO out of its present troubles. The company, said Grant, is losing money at the rate of $100,000 a week; he expects to get it into the black in two years...
Wall Street and Hollywood gossiped that RKO's real gold mine lay in its huge library of old films, and that the new owners could clean up in a hurry by selling the library to TV stations. The mere rumor of such a deal was enough to get theater owners up in arms last week. But actually, such a move would make little economic sense to RKO at present. In addition to its old films, RKO has a backlog of upwards of $35 million worth of unreleased pictures. If exhibitors boycotted the new films, as they threaten...