Herbert John Yates (1880-1966) was the founder and president of
Republic PicturesRepublic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959 and best known for its specialization in quality westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action.They were also responsible for financing one...
, famous for being the home of
John WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , born Marion Robert Morrison, better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and has become an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive voice, walk and height...
,
Gene AutryOrvon Gene Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
, and
Roy RogersRoy Rogers , was a singer and cowboy actor, as well as the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants chain. He and his second wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino Trigger, and his German Shepherd Dog, Bullet, were featured in over one hundred movies and The Roy Rogers Show...
. Under Yates' leadership between 1935 and 1959, Republic made 956 feature films and 849 serial chapters, many of which are classics enjoyed today on television and DVD by a whole new generation of appreciative fans.
Yates was born in
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
in 1880. His was a Horatio Alger story. He started his business career at an early age, building a newspaper sales business on the streets of Brooklyn. Later, he ascended rapidly through the ranks of the
American Tobacco CompanyThe American Tobacco Company was founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke as a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company...
, retiring from that business with a sizable fortune before the age of 30. Focusing on the movie and recording business, he built a small empire, acquiring record companies and film laboratories. In the twenties, he provided financing for
Mack SennettMack Sennett was a Canadian -born Academy Award-winning director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy."-Early life:...
and
Fatty ArbuckleRoscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton...
.
In October 1929, his Consolidated Film Industries took control of ARC (
American Record CorporationThe American Record Corporation, often known as ARC Records or simply ARC, was a United States based record company. It resulted from the merger in July 1929 of Regal Records, Cameo Records, Banner Records, the US branch of Pathé Records and the Scranton Button Company, the parent company of...
, a company created as a result of a merger between a number of dime store labels). In the following years, the company was very involved in a depressed market, buying failing labels at bargain prices to exploit their catalogue. (In December 1931 Warner Brothers leased Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and associated companies to ARC.) In 1932, ARC was king of the 3 records for a dollar market, selling 6 million units, twice as much as RCA Victor. In an effort to get back on top, RCA created its Bluebird label. ARC bought out the Columbia Records catalogue in 1934. In the 1930s ARC produced Brunswick at 75c and Oriole, Romeo, Melotone, Vocalion, Banner and Perfect at 35c.
In December 1938, the entire ARC complex was purchased from Consolidated Film for $700,000 by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). This allowed the rights to the Brunswick and Vocalion labels to return to Warner Brothers, which assigned the rights to those labels to Decca Records.
Yates formed Republic in 1935 by arranging for the merger of several smaller production companies with his
Consolidated Film IndustriesConsolidated Film Industries was a film laboratory, and film processing company, and was the leading film laboratory in the Los Angeles area for many decades. CFI processed negatives and made prints for motion pictures and television...
, which was providing film processing and financing for many studios in Hollywood. Among the merged companies were Mascot Pictures, which brought the serial genre to Republic, and
Monogram PicturesMonogram Pictures Corporation was a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to collectively as Poverty...
, which brought the Mack Sennett lot in Studio City. Under Yates' leadership, Republic first leased and then purchased the lot, expanding it from six stages to nineteen and adding state-of-the-art production facilities.
The Republic Studio was in large part responsible for the economic and cultural development of the surrounding neighborhoods, including Studio City and the
San Fernando ValleyThe San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in Southern California, United States. More than half of the city of Los Angeles' land area lies within the San Fernando Valley...
. Over a thousand full-time employees drew their paychecks at the studio, and many more worked in the New York home office, overseas distribution, and the two Consolidated Film plants in Hollywood and
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
.
In 1935, Yates gave Gene Autry his first movie role in the Republic production of
Tumbling Tumbleweeds, ushering in the genre of the singing cowboy. Autry had been a recording artist under contract to Yates'
American Record CorporationThe American Record Corporation, often known as ARC Records or simply ARC, was a United States based record company. It resulted from the merger in July 1929 of Regal Records, Cameo Records, Banner Records, the US branch of Pathé Records and the Scranton Button Company, the parent company of...
: he would go on to star in 56 movies for Republic between 1935 and 1947. In 1938, Yates created a second American icon by giving Roy Rogers his first starring role in
Under Western Stars Under Western Stars is a 1938 American film starring Roy Rogers....
. Rogers filled in for Autry during
the warWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and ended up making more than 80 movies under the Republic banner.
During the war, Republic entertained the home front with such patriotic titles as
Flying TigersFlying Tigers was the popular name of the 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force in 1941-1942. Arguably, the group was a private military contractor, and for that reason the volunteers have sometimes been called mercenaries...
and
Remember Pearl Harbor!, helping to keep spirits up and patriotic fervor high. After the war, Republic helped the armed forces to document some of their most significant war-time accomplishments. In 1950,
Sands of Iwo JimaSands of Iwo Jima is a 1949 war film which follows a group of US Marines from training to the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. It stars John Wayne, John Agar, Adele Mara and Forrest Tucker. The movie was written by Harry Brown and James Edward Grant and directed by Allan Dwan...
helped the
United States Marine CorpsThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States armed forces responsible for providing force projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
to stave off an attempt by Congress to merge them into the Navy. John Wayne's performance as Sergeant Stryker earned him his first
Academy AwardThe Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...
nomination.
At the same time, Republic was thrilling audiences with
cliffhangerA cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation...
serials such as
The Adventures of Captain MarvelCaptain Marvel is a fictional comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and later by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2...
,
Dick TracyDick Tracy is a long-running comic strip featuring a popular and familiar character in American pop culture.
Dick Tracy is a hard-hitting, fast-shooting, and supremely intelligent police detective who has matched wits with a variety of colorful villains, many based on real-life...
versus the Phantom Empire, and
The Lone RangerThe Lone Ranger is an American radio and television show created by George W. Trendle and developed by writer Fran Striker.The eponymous character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, originally played by Paul Halliwell, who gallops about righting injustices with the aid of his...
. These productions showcased the talents of director greats William Witney and John English and featured the special effects magic of Theodore and Howard Lydecker. In all Republic produced 65 separate serial titles ranging in length from 12 to 15 chapters each. Titles such as
King of the Rocket Men and
Zombies of the Stratosphere were some of the earliest science fiction films, paving the way for
Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. In a career of over four decades, Spielberg's films have touched on many themes and genres. Spielberg's early sci-fi and adventure films, sometimes centering on children, were seen as an archetype of modern...
,
George LucasGeorge Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, director and chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. He is best known for being the creator of the epic sci-fi franchise Star Wars and joint creator of the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
, and
Gene RoddenberryEugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American screenwriter and producer. He created the American science-fiction series Star Trek, an accomplishment for which he was sometimes referred to as the "Great Bird of the Galaxy" due to the show's influence on popular culture. He was one of the first...
.
Arguably Republic's most acclaimed movie was
The Quiet ManThe Quiet Man is a American romantic drama film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen and Barry Fitzgerald. It was based on a Saturday Evening Post short story by Maurice Walsh...
(1952), directed by
John FordJohn Ford was an American film director of Irish heritage famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach and The Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
and starring John Wayne and
Maureen O'HaraMaureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude...
. Ford had tried to make the Irish love story for years, but none of the studio heads would take a chance on it: Yates risked a budget of over a million dollars, making possible such extravagances as
TechnicolorTechnicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation , now a division of Thomson SA. Technicolor was the second major color film process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color motion picture process in Hollywood...
and location filming in Ireland. The result was spectacular - The Quiet Man is considered by many critics to be John Wayne's finest performance.
In 1948,Yates left his wife Petra for the Czech figure skater
Vera RalstonVera Ralston was a Czech figure skater and actress. She later became a naturalized American citizen. She worked as an actress during the 1940s and 1950s. Ralston was born Věra Helena Hrubá to a wealthy jeweler in Prague, Czechoslovakia...
. After his first wife's death in 1952, he and Vera were married. He retired from Republic and the movie business in 1959, the same year that Republic's board decided to switch emphasis from production to distribution. He died at his residence in
Sherman OaksSherman Oaks is an district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. In contrast to much of the Valley, the area is relatively urbanized, with commercial skyscrapers along Ventura Boulevard as well as scattered throughout...
in 1966.
The Republic lot survives today as
CBS Studio CenterCBS Studio Center is a television and film studio located in the Studio City district of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. It is located at 4024 Radford Avenue and takes up a triangular piece of land, with the Los Angeles River bisecting the site...
. Notable among Yates' contributions to the lot are the
Mabel NormandMabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
sound stage, built during the war and later home to
Mary Tyler Moore, and an award-winning music scoring auditorium that has hosted such greats as
Aaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers". Copland's music achieved a balance between modern music and American...
and
Arthur RubinsteinArthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-born American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers, and is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.-Early life:Arthur Rubinstein was born on January 28, 1887, the...
. It is a testament to Yates' foresight that these facilities have been in demand for more than 60 years.