Leaders All — John S. Woody, Master Salesman (1924) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — John S. Woody

Because he is a fighter and a stout-hearted optimist; because he is a born salesman; because he has established the reputation of being a man of his word; because during his career in the motion picture business he has traveled much and created an unusual list of friends; because his sound judgment has been sharpened by contact with all important phases of the picture industry.

For sixteen years John Samuel Woody, general manager of Associated Exhibitors, has been a part of the amusement world. For twelve of those years he has been much in that department of motion pictures having to do with exchanges and exchangemen.

He has been through the mill, from shipping clerk up. He was early intrusted with responsible positions, and for the past six years has held executives places in national organizations.

Mr. Woody was born in St. Charles, near St. Louis, and was educated in the latter city, in the grammar schools and Central High.

His introduction in the field of amusements was in Riverview Park, in Chicago, with the E. W. McConnell shows.

Then he returned to his home town and entered the employ of O. T. Crawford, one of the pioneer exchangemen of the country, with whom Arthur S. Kane, now president of Associated, was then connected as general manager.

In 1911 Mr. Woody went to Seattle, where under Mr. Kane in the office of General Film he became a shipping clerk. A little later he was promoted to salesman, and covered much of the country west of Denver.

Then came promotion to the management of the feature department of General Film and in quick succession to the head of the office in Butte for the same company. After a year in Montana Mr. Woody was made manager of the district comprising Seattle, Portland and Spokane.

In 1915 an offer from Mutual to take over the Pacific Coast division of that concern was accepted. In 1917 Mr. Woody became manager for Triangle in Chicago, and in 1918 became first manager for the Pacific Northwest and then general field manager for Select. In this position he again was allied with Mr. Kane, who then was general manager of the company. Later he was made general sales manager.

When Mr. Kane organized Realart, in April, 1919, Mr. Woody was appointed sales manager and shortly afterward was elevated to the position of general manager.

The next two and a half years were unusually busy ones for Mr. Woody. Mr. Kane, in order to open his own offices, retired from the presidency of the company not long after it was under active headway, leaving upon the shoulders of his former associate much of the responsibility for the management.

On January 1, 1922, upon the absorption of Realart by Famous Players, Mr. Woody returned to Select Pictures as vice president and general manager, remaining in that position until the summer of 1923, when he went to his present position.

Besides being general manager of Associated Mr. Woody is secretary of the corporation and a member of the board of directors.

While Mr. Woody had much to do with production during his association with Realart it was not until he took up the duties of his present position that he found his responsibilities in that department equal to those in that of distribution. Capitalizing the experience of previous years in the field he has had the supervision of the making of the later pictures for Associated, from selecting the story and naming the cast and director through the various stages of production.

At the present time there are a dozen pictures about completed and ready for the coming season’s distribution that have been produced under Mr. Woody’s supervision.

Throughout his business career Mr. Woody has maintained close contact with Mr. Kane. Five times they have been under the same general roof, in St. Louis, with O. T. Crawford; in Seattle, with General Film; in New York, with Select, with Realart and now with Associated.

Through these years the two men have been close friends and strong partisans one for the other.

Mr. Woody, as seen by one of his closest friends, is a natural born salesman, a “remarkably vigorous, virile, genial character.” It has been said of him that by reason of his varied experience, from shipping clerk in an exchange to general manager of a national company — of three of these, in fact — that he probably numbers as many close friends among exhibitors as are possessed by any one in the industry.

Mr. Woody’s intimate knowledge of men and houses and conditions generally in all of the important towns in all territories has been of advantage to him in his newer and larger present responsibilities.

To his broadening activities he has brought an accurate idea of picture values and what can be best marketed to advantage; how to frame productions and what the public requires.

It has been said of him, too, that by reason of his large acquaintance in the field and of the confidence reposed in him by exhibitors he can probably book by telegraph as many shows as any man occupying a similar position.

Mr. Woody is a stout-hearted optimist; it never has been said of him that he is a quitter.

He is strong in council. He is fertile in expedient. He has an unusual faculty of discerning the best way and the right way out of a “situation.”

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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 21 June 1924

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