The East Coast, May 2 to 25

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Blanche Markwell/Colp (Loeb), 1900 to 1963, wife of Robert M. Markwell, was known as Binks.

Marynell Eisenberg (Markwell), 1924 to 1995, was the daughter of Binks and Robert.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy, 1888 to 1969, was a US businessman, investor and politician, and father of John F., Robert and Edward Kennedy. From 1926, he invested heavily in Hollywood. His company, FBO, was one of three that merged in 1928 to form RKO, one of the so-called Big Five studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age

Murray Silverstone, managing director of the United Artists American film and television entertainment studio in the UK

Jack K. Lawrence, 1912 to 2009. Born in New York, he wrote the lyrics for Broadway shows that included Courtin’ Time (1951) and I Had a Ball (1964), as well as for the ballad Tenderly, one of Rosemary Clooney’s trademark songs.

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Minna Elliman (1887-1969) was Louis M’s first wife. She was nine years his senior, a widow with a son when she married him. She was succeeded by Mollie, Louis M’s second wife (1912-1995), who was 25 years her junior, and outlived him.

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Joseph (Joe) Seidelman, was foreign distribution head, Universal Pictures

William (Bill) A. Scully, 1894 to 1987, from Portland, ME, was vice president and general sales manager of Universal Pictures from 1938 until he retired in 1956. Before coming to Universal, he was sales manager for Metro‐Goldwyn Mayer.

Maurice A. Bergman, 1899 to 1978, was a motion picture advertising and public relations executive. He managed public relations for the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre in the 1930s, became advertising manager for Twentieth Century Fox in 1940, moved to direct eastern advertising and PR for Universal International Pictures in 1942, and was appointed the company’s executive in charge of public relations in 1951.

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Edgar Mayer, 1890 to 1975, was an associate professor at the Cornell University School of Medicine and director of its pulmonary service, professor of industrial medicine at New York University, founder and the first president of the New York State chapter of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Cecile Seligman Lehman Mayer, 1894 to 1962, was a leading figure in charity, culture and civic work.

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Loew International managed MGM’s large East Coast movie theatre operations. In 1920, Marcus Loew bought Metro Pictures Corporation, and a few years later acquired a controlling interest in the financially troubled Goldwyn Picture Corporation.

Chas (Charlie) Goldsmith, 1908 to 1998, began his career at MGM in 1931 as an assistant manager in Brazil. After World War II, he coordinated the company’s activities in the British Empire, and in 1952 became UK chairman and managing director of MGM Pictures and their associated theater company.

Nate J. Blumberg, 1894 to 1960, motion picture executive. Born in New York City, he was advising the CBS Broadcast group in the mid-1930s when Universal Pictures hired him to head the studio’s management and finance departments. Making Universal a first-run market with A-class bankable film stars, he was its president from 1938 to 1952, and chairman of its board, from 1952 to 1960.

Vera Fox Blumberg, 1901to 1977, was Nate’s wife, and sister of motion picture and television executive Matthew M. Fox.

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Sardi’s was a continental restaurant at 234 West 44th Street, between Broadway and 8th Avenue) in Manhattan’s Theater District. Known for the hundreds of caricatures of show business celebrities on its walls, it opened in 1927 and became known as a pre- and post-theater hangout, and a location for opening night parties.

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Adolph Zukor, 1873 –1976, founded Paramount Pictures and served as its president from 1916 to 1936. He was born in in Ricse, Hungary, orphaned young and emigrated to the US at age 18. He started work in upholstery, became a furrier, prospered and acquired a large New York apartment and a vast Rockland County estate. He bought into the Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1917, and became the driving force behind its success. He revolutionized the film industry by organizing production, distribution and exhibition within a single company; he signed many of the leading stars; of his day; and pioneered ‘block booking,’ forcing exhibitors to buy a year’s worth of Paramount productions to get a certain star.

The Paramount Theatre and office building stood 39 stories high on a huge plot at Broadway and 43rd Street. It opened in 1926.

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‘The Guvnor,’ Maurice Elliman, 1872 to 1952, Louis’s father and a pioneer of entertainment in Ireland.

Barney Balaban, 1887 to 1971, was a cinema industry innovator and president of Paramount Pictures from 1936 to 1964. The eldest of seven sons, he was a messenger-boy for a cold storage company until 1908 when, aged 21, he went into the cinema business. With brother-in-law Sam Katz, he built up a chain of cinemas which was incorporated in 1923. In 1936, he was elected president of Paramount.

George Weltner, 1901 to 1985, succeeded Balaban as president of Paramount Pictures Corporation. Born in Chicago, he began at Paramount in 1922 as a darkroom assistant after graduating Columbia University, and rose steadily through the company. In 1966, he oversaw Paramount’s merger with Gulf and Western Industries Inc.

Paul Ackerman, 1908 to 1977, an influential music journalist, was music editor of Billboard Magazine from 1943 to 1973.

Joseph (Joe) Seidelman was foreign distribution head for Universal Pictures.

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Tickets Please! was a musical revue which first played on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre from April 27 to November 4, 1950, starring Grace and Paul Hartman

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Thomas Edward Trinder, CBE, 1909 to 1989, was a British stage, screen and radio comedian of the pre- and post-war years, whose catchphrase was ‘You lucky people.’

Lou Walters, 1896 to 1977, was an American booking agent, theatrical producer and the founder of the famed Latin Quarter nightclub in New York. His daughter, Barbara Walters, became a famous television journalist.

Robert (Bob) Goldstein, 1904 to 1974, was a motion‐picture producer, production chief at Twentieth Century Fox Studios, and a producer for Universal‐International and Warner Brothers.

Martin Joseph Quigley, Sr., 1890 to 1964, was an American publisher, editor and film magazine journalist. He founded Exhibitors Herald, an important national trade paper for the film industry, and Quigley Publishing.

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William B. (Bill) Goetz, 1903 to 1969, an American film producer and studio executive, a founder of Twentieth Century Pictures, later renamed 20th Century Fox, and later head of production at Universal-International.

Martin Quigley Jr., 1917 to 2011, was a publisher of film magazines, author and politician, twice elected mayor of Larchmont, New York.

WASHINGTON, DC AND WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS — AND BACK TO NEW YORK

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Skyline Drive is a 105-mile-long road that runs the entire length of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

Natural Bridge, a geological formation in Rockbridge County, Virginia, is a 215-foot-high natural arch spanning 90 feet

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Charles (Charlie) Goldsmith, 1908-1998, began his career at MGM in 1931 as an assistant manager in Brazil, went on to coordinate its operations in the British Empire, and in 1952 became the UK chairman and managing director of MGM Pictures and their associated theatres.

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David Nathaniel Martin, 1898 to 1958, was born in Perth, Australia, and entered show business advertising for Waddington’s cinema circuit. In 1919 he became publicity manager for Paramount, the next year was appointed Universal Pictures’ New South Wales manager, and in 1933 formed his own company, Imperial Theatres Ltd. He leased the Rialto Cinema in Pitt Street, renovating and reopening it a year later with a revolutionary screening policy: only two shows a day, at the highest ticket prices in town. iI flourished, and in 1937 was taken over by MGM as a prestige showcase. Martin then turned to live theatre — the Minerva Centre in Kings Cross, Sydney, and the Tivoli in Melbourne. A hands-on producer, he dispensed with Australian performers, bringing overseas stars and productions.

William (Bill) Horne, 1913 to 1983, was an American operatic tenor, who performed with the New York City Opera. He was born in Manhattan.

Ruth Goddard, 1886 to 1972, was an actress and writer, known for BBC Sunday Night Theatre (1950) and On Camera (1954). She was born Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England as Frances Marion Ruth Fleetwood.

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Margaret Elizabeth Sheridan, 1926 to 1982, was an American actress, best remembered for her role as Nikki Nickolson opposite in the 1951 science fiction classic The Thing from Another World.

William Joseph Patrick O’Brien, 1899 to 1983, was American film actor with more than 100 screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was known in the press as “Hollywood’s Irishman in Residence.”

Robert Douglas (Finlayson), 1909 to 1999, was a British stage and film actor, television director and producer.

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Isidore Williem Schlesinger, 1871 to 1949, was a pioneer of the South African entertainment industry, and a significant figure in the South African business world with interests in insurance, property development and finance. He entered the entertainment industry in 1931 with the purchase of the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg. His wife, Mable May, was a well-known Johannesburg actress.

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Murray Silverstone, 1895 to 1969, started out in the legal profession, spending seven years in the New York County District Attorney’s office. His movie connection began with his joining the film division of Hearst Enterprises. He worked for United Artists for 20 years, becoming its president in 1938. In 1942 became president 20th Century Fox International.

Dorothy (Littman) Silverstone, 1904 to 1993, was a patron of the arts, and founder-director of the Scarsdale Cultural Center. With her three daughters in Israel in 1949, she produced The Magnetic Tide, a film about Jewish-Arab coexistence, that was distributed nationally by Century Fox.

With Murray, she co-founded the International Cultural Center for Youth in Jerusalem in 1960 as a place where Jewish and Arab children could learn about their own culture and those of others. A donation to the ICCY was made in memory of Louis’s parents, Leah and Maurice, (by their children?) at some point during the next 20 years — see the plaque in the centre of the top row.

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The Drake Hotel, a 21-floor complex with 495 rooms, was built in 1926. As well as spacious, luxurious rooms and suites, it boasted innovations such as automatic refrigeration.

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(Shaun) Terence Young, 1915 to 1994, was a British film director and screenwriter best known for directing three James Bond films — Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), and Thunderball (1965), all starring Sean Connery as Bond.

Click here to read about the next leg of Louis’s journey.