RKO Productions, Inc.
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Formerly called
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| Private | |
| Industry | Motion pictures |
| Predecessors |
Mutual Film Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation Film Booking Offices of America Radio Corporation of America |
| Founded | October 14, 1928 |
| 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. |
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Key people
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Ted Hartley, Dina Merrill |
| Parent | Independent (1912–1957) |
| Website | www.rko.com |
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| 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 |
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Key people
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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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