Paul Kalmanovitz

Paul Kalmanovitz (1905–1987) was a millionaire brewing and real estate magnate best known for owning all or part of several national breweries and their products, including Falstaff Brewing Company and Pabst Brewing Company. Most of the Kalmanovitz Estate was left to create a charitable foundation for hospitals and universities.

Kalmanovitz was born to a Jewish family in Łódź, Poland. Paul emigrated to Egypt at the end of the World War I his family father, mother and brothers remained in Lodz and he later worked for Sir Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby. Kalmanowitz arrived in the United States in the 1926 by jumping a merchant marine ship and jumped from job to job, working for several notable people such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, and Louis B. Mayer (MGM). In 1945 Paul Kalmanovitz received a letter from his niece, Sonia Kalmanowicz, the daughter of his oldest brother Joseph Kalmanowicz, in this letter she informed Paul that his brother had died in Auschwitz in 1944 and that she and her brother Stanislas had survived Auschwitz. He immediately arranged to apply for a visa number for them to enter the United States, by 1946 Stanislas was granted a visa, Sonia by then had decided to remain in France. Stanislas departed from Le Havre in April 1946 in steerage on the SS Oregon a ship of WWI vintage. You will notice that Paul when he entered the United States changed the spelling of the family name from Kalmanowicz to Kalmanovitz, so when Stanilas arrived in New York he officially changed his name to Stanley Kalmanovitz.

Paul was in New York to pick up his nephew and to accompany him to his home in Tarzana, California.

In 1950 Kalmanovitz acquired the Maier Brewing Company in Los Angeles, California and officially entered the brewing industry. Maier Brewing, makers of Brew 102, struggled for a number of years, and in 1958 faced a strong push to be bought out by the Falstaff Brewing Company. Kalmanovitz refused to be bought out, even after being threatened by Falstaff to either sell or Falstaff would bury the Maier Brewery. Within a few years Kalmanovitz turned the Maier Brewery around and began making a profit. Along with the brewery and numerous other investments, Kalmanovitz's net worth began to swell. In 1970 Kalmanovitz purchased Lucky Lager and merged it with his Maier Brewing Company to form the General Brewing Company with S&P Corporation as its parent.

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