Edwin & Gertrude Thanhouser

Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser. , The New York Metropolitan Area was once a mecca for filmmaking. In 1893. Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the U.S. near his laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey called the Black Maria. In 1895, the Biograph Company was founded near Union Square in Manhatan, and in 1913 it moved to the Bronx. American Vitagraph flourished in Brooklyn, and Fox Films and Universal Studios got their start in Fort Lee, New Jersey., In New Rochelle, the Thanhouser film studio was founded in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser, his wife Gertrude, and brother-in-law Lloyd Lonergan. Thanhouser, known as "The Wizard of New Rochelle," leased space in an old wooden skating rink near the current I-95 overpass on Grove Avenue. When fire destroyed the facility in 1913 the company moved to a building at 320 Main Street., The Thanhouser Company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917. Gertrude Thanhouser who worked as actress, scenario writer, film editor and studio executive made the studio one of the key independent film studios in the U.S. Lloyd Lonergan was a prolific scriptwriter and wrote the serial The Million Dollar Mystery, released in 1914 and which was a huge success for the studio earning over two million dollars! Thanhouser brought actress Florence La Badie to the Company in 1911. She became their most prominent star and was known as "Fearless Flo" because she did her own stunts., In 1912, Thanhouser sold his company to The Mutual Film Corporation with Charles J. Hite assuming the presidency. Early in 1915, after Hite's death, he once again took charge of the company, but by 1917, an economic slump and the movie industry's exodus to Hollywood put the company out of business., The Thanhousers lived on Slocum Road in Rochelle Heights.