Fort Lee: Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry
A favorite locale of such film pioneers as D. W. Griffith and Mary Pickford, the historic borough of Fort Lee was the first center of the American motion picture industry. Studios lined both sides of Main Street, and enormous film laboratories fed the nickelodeon market with thousands of reels of comedies and cliffhangers. Broadway stars and producers came here to make many of their first feature-length films; but by the 1920s, Theda Bara, Fatty Arbuckle, and Douglas Fairbanks were gone. Yet even after the studios closed down, the film industry was still the backbone of the local economy, with hundreds working behind the scenes in the printing, storage, and distribution of movies being made in Hollywood.
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Fort Lee: Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry Fort Lee Film Commission No preview available - 2006 |
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20th Century Fox actor actress Alice Guy Blaché American film appeared Arbuckle born Broadway built Champion studio cinema Cliffhanger Coytesville Coytesville section D. W. Griffith director Tom Meyers Dorothy Éclair studio featured Film Company Film Festival film historian film industry Film Town filmmakers films include FLFC executive director FLFC member Fort Lee Fox Film Corporation Fox studio glass slide Goldwyn Pictures Corporation Hollywood Jersey John Street Jules Brulatour Kalem Laemmle Lee Film Commission Lee residents Lee studio Lee's Lemoine Avenue Linwood Avenue lobby card Mack Sennett Main Street Mary Pickford Maurice Tourneur Metro Pictures movie serial Palisades Amusement Park Paragon studio Pathé Perils of Pauline photograph production Richard Koszarski Robin Hood role Roscoe Fatty Schenck screen Selznick Selznick Pictures silent film Solax studio starred Street and Linwood studio on John studio on Main theater Theda Theda Bara Universal studio William Fox World Film Corporation World Pictures World studio