Fox Film Corporation ( Now Fox Entertainment - Fair and Balanced) - New York, 1926

Beautifully engraved certificate from the Fox Film Corporation issued in 1926. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an allegorical woman with her hand on a globe. This item is hand signed by the Company President and Treasurer and is over 79 years old.




Certificate Vignette

Fox Film Corporation was formed when William Fox (1879-1952) merged distributor Greater New York Film Rental and producer Fox Office Attractions Company, both of which he had established in 1913. He had been born as Wilhelm Fuchs in Austria-Hungary and migrated to New York as a child, breaking into the film business as a nickelodeon operator and becoming a major player with the 1915 feature A Fool There Was starring sultry Theda Bara (born Theodosia Goodman).

During 1917 Fox Film moved to Hollywood. In 1926 it acquired the Movietone system for recording sound on film, in competition with the Warner Bros Vitaphone system and AT&T's system, and launched what was the first successful US weekly sound newsreel. During the 1920s Fox directors included F W Murnau and John Ford. Fox's exhibition arm - Fox Theaters - grew to some 800 venues. It was particularly strong on the US West Coast, with the Fox West Coast chain, and expanded into large-scale property development (Fox for example proposed a 52-storey tower at 47th Street and Broadway in New York).

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, a major American motion-picture studio, was formed in 1935 by the merger of Twentieth Century Pictures and the Fox Film Corporation. The company set up a seperate corporation for National Theatres, Inc in 1952.

20th Century Fox was taken over by oil tycoon Marvin Davis in 1981. Davis subsequently shared ownership with Murdoch's News.

In 1985 the group was absorbed by News, becoming a unit of Fox Inc. (the parent of Fox Broadcasting).

The film production unit was renamed Fox Film Corporation in 1989.