Columbia Pictures
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (CPII) is an American film production and distribution company. It was one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Today, as part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group—owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony—it is one of the leading film companies in the world, a member of the so-called Big Six. It has no connection with CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System).
The studio, founded in 1919 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924 and went public two years later. In its early years a minor player in Hollywood, Columbia began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra.
With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the primary homes of the screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbia's major contract stars were Jean Arthur and Cary Grant (who was shared with RKO Pictures). In the 1940s, Rosalind Russell, Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, and William Holden became major stars at the studio.
In 1982, the studio was purchased by Coca-Cola; that same year it launched Tri-Star Pictures as a joint venture with HBO and CBS. Five years later, Coca-Cola divested Columbia, which merged with Tri-Star. After a brief period of independence, the combined studio was acquired by Sony in 1989.
In 2009, Columbia Pictures will celebrate its 85th Anniversary.
See also
- Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation
- Columbia Pictures Television
- Columbia TriStar Television
- Template:Slink
- Sony Pictures
- Sony Pictures Television
- Major film studios
