Moodabe family

The Moodabe family is a long established Auckland family which has been associated with the development and operation of cinema in New Zealand since the 1920s.

Business beginnings

Michael Joseph Moodabe (1895–1975) was born in Sydney, Australia, on 24 June 1895, and, after the family shifted to Auckland, his brother Joseph Patrick Moodabe (1899–1985), was born in Auckland on 19 December.^[1] The family ran a small grocery shop in Grey Street. Michael Moodabe (MJ) started as a peanut-seller and, later, a cleaner and caretaker at the King George theatre on Queen St, Auckland. He got his first big opportunity when he was offered a partnership in 1924^[2] in the Hippodrome Picture Company, with the title of manager and a salary of £6 10s. per week. In late 1920s, Michael Moodabe began to expand the company, assisted by his brother Joseph (known as JP), and in August 1928 Hippodrome Pictures became Amalgamated Theatres.^[1]

Amalgamated expansion

When Thomas O'Brien and his beloved Civic Theatre went bankrupt in 1932, the Moodabe brothers took over O'Brien's other Auckland theatres, including the Princess (later the Plaza), the Rialto in Newmarket, and the Tivoli in Karangahape Road. These cinemas, and later the National Picture Theatre (formerly the King George), gave Amalgamated a strong base in New Zealand's largest city. However, the Civic was to remain out of their full control until 1945, when, against stiff competition from both the American company Warner Brothers Pictures and local cinema magnate Robert Kerridge, Amalgamated obtained a 50-year lease.^[1]

20th Century Fox

Late in 1936, to guarantee film supply, MJ persuaded the American giant Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation to buy a half interest in Amalgamated. By 1938 the company's circuit had grown to 65 cinemas, and attendances that year were said to be five million – equivalent to three visits by every New Zealander. When television came to New Zealand in 1960, the Moodabes arranged for Fox to buy the remaining half share; the latter agreed on condition that the Moodabe family remained in management control.^[1]

MJ and JP

MJ was a born showman. Short and heavily built, he possessed an open, effusive personality. He was rarely seen without a large cigar ('Here, have a good cigar' was his popular greeting to smokers and non-smokers alike), and he was described as 'New Zealand's Sam Goldwyn', after the Hollywood producer known for his colourful turn of phrase. A shrewd businessman and gifted publicist, he often deliberately created queues outside his cinema to stimulate public interest in a film. On one occasion he spread a load of sand outside a theatre to publicise a western; unfortunately, when it rained cinema-goers trudged much of it inside. From 1941 to 1947 he served as an Auckland City Councillor under Mayor John Allum, and in 1952 he was made an OBE.^[1]

JP Moodabe was almost the exact opposite of his brother: shorter still, slim and conservative, he was the financial watchdog for the circuit, perfectly balancing MJ's sometimes extravagant personality. There is no record of their ever fighting openly over a point of business, although after a disagreement JP would simply not show up at the office for a day or two. As brothers they loved each other deeply; as businessmen they respected and carried out each other's decisions. In the 1960s JP made an emotional visit to Brazil to meet one of his sisters for the first time.^[1]

Transition

In 1962 the Moodabe brothers retired from the cinema chain they had created, leaving the executive management (with Fox's blessing) to MJ's three sons, Royce, Michael and Joseph. JP's wife, Dorothy, died in May 1967, and on 29 November that year, at St Patrick's Cathedral, he wed Leila Dunstan Macknight (née Maher); neither marriage produced children. The Moodabes' mother, Elizabeth, died in 1973, aged 104. M J Moodabe died in Auckland on 20 September 1975, survived by his sons; Alma had died in 1956. His brother Joseph, whose second wife predeceased him in 1976, died in Auckland on 15 February 1985.^[1]

MJ's sons

MJ and Alma Moodabe's three sons, Royce Moodabe (born 1937), Joseph Moodabe (b. 1940?) and Michael Moodabe (b. 1943? died 3 September 2009) grew up in Epsom, Auckland^[3] and were educated at St Peter's College. The three sons used to visit their father's office in the Civic Theatre, Queen Street as they grew up, all were "promised a desk in the corner of that room and their father's supervision". However, each actually began "as office boy out the back, tediously filing admission receipt dockets until they learnt to carve their own niche". They were employed in Amalgamated Theatres from when they left school in the late 1950s.^[4] On the retirement of their father and uncle, Royce became managing director and Joseph and Michael had management roles. They continued to be involved in the management of the chain from the 1960s to the 1980s. The owner of the chain, 20th Century Fox sold out in the 1980s to the Chase Corporation and then the chain came into the ownership of Hoyts which continued to employ the brothers in senior management positions.^[5] Royce Moodabe became general manager of Hoyts Australian circuit.^[6] He retired in 2006 after 57 years in the business.^[7] In 1997 Joe Moodabe joined Village Force Cinemas " ... which, as general manager, he built it into the "country's biggest cinema chain". In 2006 the chain became wholly owned by SkyCity and was renamed SkyCity Cinemas. Joe Moodabe became executive chairman of an in-house board that oversaw developments in the cinema business.^[5]

References