Robert Naify

Robert Naify is an American businessman and motion picture and media tycoon known for his ownership of the movie theaters chain United Artists Theatres, cable company United Artists Communications Inc and post-production and sound mixing firm Todd-AO.

Naify, the son of a Lebanese immigrant who built a movie theater empire beginning in 1912, has worked in the theater business nearly all his life. His father got into movie business in Atlantic City with a movie theater in 1912 where Robert and brother Marshall Naify (d. 2000) started as ushers, projectionists. The Naify brothers built the first movie screen in San Francisco, the New Fillmore and The Clay, which was first a nickelodeon house and one of the oldest theaters in San Francisco.They then moved to California in the early 1920s and built more theaters like the Cascade Theatre

About this time they also acquired the San Francisco Theaters owned by Samuel H Levin. These theaters were the Balboa, Alexandria, Coliseum, Vogue Metro, the Harding, and Coronet, which was opened in 1949. In 1988 UA bought the Philadelphia-based Sameric chain of about 30 locations in PA, NJ, and DE. The UA Theaters main office was in San Francisco until 1988 when it was sold to TCI. Thereafter, it was relocated to Englewood, CO.

After Inheriting movie theater empire Golden State Theaters, they purchased the United Artists Theaters chain. UA Theaters (established in 1924) has its roots in the movie studio of the same name founded by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith, but legally has always been separate from it. The company became the nation's largest owner of movie theaters, with 2,050 screens and later sold it in 1986 to John Malone's Tele-communications Inc. for cash, TCI stock. United Artists Theaters is now part of the Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theater chain in America.

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