| Siegmund Lubin | |
|---|---|
| Born | Siegmund Lubszynski April 20, 1851 Breslau |
| Died | September 11, 1923 (aged 72) Ventnor, New Jersey |
| Spouse | Annie Abrams (m. 1882–1923) |
Siegmund Lubin (April 20, 1851 – September 11, 1923) was a Polish-American motion picture pioneer.
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He was born as Siegmund Lubszynski in Breslau, Silesia, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) on April 20, 1851, to a German Jewish family. In 1876 he emigrated to the United States, where he worked as an ophthalmologist in Philadelphia.[1]
He started by making his own camera and projector combination, which he sold. In 1896 he began distributing films for Thomas Edison. in 1897 he started making films and in 1902 formed the Lubin Manufacturing Company, incorporating it in 1909. By 1910 his company had built a film studio, "Lubinville", in Philadelphia.[1]
A fire at its studio in June 1914 destroyed the negatives for his unreleased new films. When World War I broke out in Europe in September of that year, Lubin Studios, and other American filmmakers, lost foreign sales. The dissolution of the Motion Picture Patents Company. After making more than a thousand motion pictures, on September, 1, 1917, the Lubin Film Company went out of business.[1]
He went back to work as an ophthalmologist.
He died on September 11, 1923 at his home in Ventnor, New Jersey.[1][2] He was buried on September 14, 1923.[3]
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Siegmund Lubin has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6166 Hollywood Blvd.
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer, Siegmund Lubin (ISBN 0-8386-3728-0) by Joseph P. Eckhardt (1988)