Hiram Abrams

Hiram was born in Portland, Maine, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant who became a real estate broker. Hiram Abrams left school at the age of sixteen, sold newspapers, and eventually ended up managing several Portland film theaters.Arthur Douglas Stover, Eminent Mainers: Succinct Biographies of Thousands of Amazing Mainers, Mostly Dead, and a Few People from Away Who Have Done Something Useful Within the State of Maine, Gardiner, Maine: Tilbury House, 2006. By 1909, he began marketing films, and later became a distributor.

Through the motion picture industry, Abrams became acquainted with W. W. Hodkinson and when Hodkinson founded Paramount Pictures in 1914, Abrams began serving on the five-man board-of-directors.{{cite web|url=http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/hodkinson_system.htm|author=J. A. Aberdeen|title=W. W. Hodkinson: The Man Who Invented the Movie Business|website=cobbles.com|accessdate=May 28, 2018}} When Hodkinson denied Paramount partners Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky more of the profits, Zukor - in a Machiavellian plot - devised a coup.

Zukor and Lasky sold Hodkinson more of their film rights and, using that money, they purchased Paramount stock to, by 1916, gain a majority of it. Then with Abrams, James Steele and William Sherry, they used this majority to vote Hodkinson out. Abrams took over as president and Steele as treasurer.{{cite news|title=Behind-the-scenes Intrigue at Paramount: Testimony of Al Lichtman|work=The New York Telegraph|date=April 26, 1923}}

In 1917, Abrams, while in Boston, organized a party for Fatty Arbuckle, Zukor, Lasky, and several others.{{cite web|url=http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/26_bar_7.htm|title=The Morals of Hollywood and the Arbuckle Case: Owners of the Movies Are Responsible for Present Conditions|website=cinemaweb.com}} Eventually, the party, sans Arbuckle, moved to Mishawum Manor, an inn of notorious reputation. Willing women appeared, and later a photographer. A few days later, it became evident the moguls had been caught in a badger game. Daniel H. Coakley, a notoriously crooked Boston lawyer, threatened arrest on moral charges. Studio lawyers were hastily summoned and eventually $100,000 was paid to have the charges dropped. It is likely this escapade cost Abrams his job, as Zukor fired him soon afterwards.Will Irwin, The House That Shadows Built, New York City:Doubleday, Doran, 1929.

Abrams and his new partner, Ben Schulberg, convinced Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith to break with their studios and form an independent distributing company;{{cite web|url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/griffith/|author=John Steinle|title=D.W. Griffith|website=sensesofcinema.com|date=31 January 2022 }} the result was United Artists, set up on 5 February 1919. Abrams was appointed its managing director.

During the company's early years, there were serious problems. The United Artists could not produce a continuous flow of films for theaters and suffered serious distribution problems caused by competing firms.{{cite web|url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/griffith/|title=D.W. Griffith • Great Director profile • Senses of Cinema|date=18 April 2012 |publisher=}} Schulberg walked away within two months.{{cite news|title=Ben Schulberg Leaves United Artists|work=Motion Picture World|date=April 12, 1919|page=216}} Roughly a year later, he sued Abrams, alleging Abrams had breached their partnership agreement.{{cite news|title=Ben Schulberg Sues Hiram Abrams; Alleging Partnership Agreement Broken|work=Motion Picture World|date=September 25, 1920|page=510}} These distribution problems were not solved until Joseph Schenck, Abrams' successor, took over.

During Abrams' tenure, however, United Artists did release Griffith's Way Down East (1921) and Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925). Both were enormously successful, becoming two of the top ten grossing films of the 1920s.{{cite web|url=http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice2.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151121074923/http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice2.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 21, 2015|title=All-Time Top Box-Office By Decade and Year|website=Filmsite.org|accessdate=May 28, 2018}}

Abram's involvement in United Artists, and his life, ended in Manhattan on 15 November 1926, from a sudden cardiac incident, aged 48.Time, 29 November 1926

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• Francis Russell, The Knave of Boston: In all the pack, Dan Coakley Deserved to be Called, American Heritage, August 1976, 27
• [http://www.hadassah.org/news/content/per_hadassah/archive/2006/06_Jul/traveler.asp Nahma Sandrow, "The Jewish Traveler: Portland"]{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} on hadassah.org

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{{commons category|Hiram Abrams}}

• [http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,729737,00.html TIME at jcgi.pathfinder.com]{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• [http://www.mainepublicradio.org/homestom/timelines/artstimeline.html#abrams mainepublicradio.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070324113516/http://www.mainepublicradio.org/homestom/timelines/artstimeline.html#abrams |date=March 24, 2007 }}
• [http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/ftc-case_lichtman.htm Behind-the-scenes intrigue at Paramount at cobbles.com]
• [http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/26_bar_7.htm Baring the Heart of Hollywood at cinemaweb.com]
• [http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edward_golden.htm Edward Golden: Hollywood Renegade at cobbles.com]

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Category:1878 births

Category:1926 deaths

Category:Paramount Pictures executives

Category:United Artists people

Category:Businesspeople from Los Angeles

Category:Businesspeople from Portland, Maine

Category:20th-century American businesspeople

Category:Jews from Maine