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RKO Productions, Inc.

RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.(1928-1957) RKO Pictures (1957-Present)
Formerly called
  • RKO Radio Pictures Inc. (1928–1956)
  • RKO Teleradio Pictures, Inc. (1956–1960)
  • RKO Pictures Inc. (1981–present)
Private
Industry Motion pictures
Predecessors Mutual Film
Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation
Film Booking Offices of America
Radio Corporation of America
Founded October 14, 1928; 88 years ago (1928-10-14)
Founders David Sarnoff
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
Defunct January 31, 1957 (as RKO Radio Pictures)
Headquarters 1270 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York, U.S.
Key people
Ted Hartley, Dina Merrill
Parent Independent (1912–1957)
Website www.rko.com
RKO Pictures LLC
Limited liability company (LLC)
Industry Motion pictures
Founded 1991
Headquarters L.A. Office: 9200 W. Sunset Blvd. Suite 600, West Hollywood, CA 90069
N.Y. Office: 750 Lexington Ave. Suite 2200, New York, NY 10022
Key people
Ted Hartley (Chairman and CEO)
Dina Merrill (Vice Chairman)
Vanessa Coifman (Executive Vice President of Production and Development)
Divisions Roseblood Movie Co.
RKO Distribution
Website www.rko.com

RKO Pictures Inc., also known as RKO Radio Pictures and in its later years RKO Teleradio Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company. It was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) vaudeville theatre circuit and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone. By the mid-1940s, the studio was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum.

RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewton's low-budget horror unit and RKO's many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong, Citizen Kane and the beloved "Anne of Green Gables" showcasing RKO's new up and coming child star June Preston who at age 4 paid a visit to the studio where an executive saw her and called for an immediate screen test, which resulted in a 5-year contract with RKO and landed her first film as Mrs. Blewett's Daughter in Anne of Green Gables.


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