Columbia Pictures
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2 Notable films 3 External links |
Columbia Pictures was founded in 1924 by Harry Cohn as the CBC Film Company. Columbia started out as one of the so-called "Poverty Row" studios of Hollywood, but it gradually built up its reputation with a number of high-profile films. The critical acclaim and popularity of It Happened One Night solidified Columbia's position, and it added television production in the 1950s under the brand name Screen Gems. Harry Cohn ran the studio until his death in 1957; his tough personality made him difficult to work with, but few could argue that he was not successful at his profession.
From the 1930s through the 1950s, Columbia produced 180 short subjects starring The Three Stooges.
In the 1970s, the studio was brought up from near financial ruin by a number of hit films and TV shows but was still marred by the David Begelman check-forging scandal. Begelman eventually resigned but later ended up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Columbia Pictures was bought by Coca-Cola in 1982. Columbia's fortunes were mixed in the 1980s, as hits like Tootsie and Ghostbusters were balanced by costly flops like Ishtar and Leonard Part 6. In television, Columbia acquired Norman Lear's production company, thereby gaining the rights to his backlog of highly successful TV programs, and the TV producing firm of Merv Griffin, which produced the hit game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
Around the time of the Coca-Cola acquisition, Columbia, HBO and CBS formed a production company known as Nova; the three parents would share the cost of making films. When the company's first release came in 1984, it was renamed Tri-Star Pictures. Coca-Cola soon bought the two thirds of the company they didn't already own.
Coke execs soon grew tired of the volatility of the movie business and sold all its entertainment holdings to Sony in 1989.
History
Notable films
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
External links