William Fox (Wilhelm or Vilmos Fuchs, 1879-1952), was, like Marcus Loew, a furrier who opened a chain of vaudeville and movie houses. He bought out most of the Poli chain in 1913, and two years later went into production, forming the Fox Film Corporation, which merged with the 20th Century Films Company twenty years later to become 20th Century-Fox. How singularly bizarre that in the 21st Century, the brand based on the professional name of this immigrant entrepreneur would be most closely associated with an arch conservative television network he never had anything to do with! Life’s twists and turns never cease to amaze.
To find out more about the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
(Travalanche) 