J. Stuart Blackton(1875-1941)
- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
J. Stuart Blackton came to the US with his family from Sheffield,
England, in 1885 at age 10, settling in New York. He became friends
with Albert E. Smith - who later became his business partner and headed
Vitagraph Studios - in 1894 and they started a short-lived vaudeville
act together. Blackton went to work as a reporter for the "New York
Evening World" newspaper, and an interview with Thomas A. Edison one day in 1896
piqued his interest in the film business. He later quit his job at the
paper and bought a Kinetoscope projecting machine from Edison. He and
his ex-vaudeville partner Smith joined forces and exhibited films all
over the city, a venture that proved so profitable they quickly moved
from exhibition to production. They made their first film in 1898,
The Burglar on the Roof (1898), for release through Edison, but soon became disenchanted with
that company (in addition to becoming involved in legal wrangling with
it) and began their own company, American Vitagraph, with partner
William T. Rock in 1900. Blackton acted in some productions but his main focus
was in directing. He eventually left that field and became supervisor
of all of the company's productions. He left the company in 1917 to go
into independent production. He also worked as a director for hire for
many studios, but did a lot of work for Warner Bros. He died in a car
accident in California in 1941.
