Understanding the Business of Entertainment

Chapter 7Media Growth and Ownership

Introduction

During the early twentieth century, creative geniuses like Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Buster Keaton and Alfred Hitchcock immediately grasped the power of film. They, along with talented actors like Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson, became wildly popular, idolized movie personalities. Other stars would leap to the top of the recording industry; by the late 1920s, Al Jolson, Rudi Vallee and Louis Armstrong were among the first singers and bandleaders adored by mass audiences. In the early 1950s, Sid Caeser, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason would become the first monarchs of television, entertaining literally tens of millions of people each night.

Talented creators ...