Leaders All — Oscar Price, Constructive Organizer (1924) 🇺🇸
Leaders All — Oscar Price
Because from early military training he developed an exceptional knack for organization which subsequently enabled him to build an unusual reputation as an executive and qualified him to act in governmental positions of great responsibility during the world war; because, since entering the motion picture business he has applied the same principles and methods with substantial success, and because his personality is of a sort that commands the affection of co-workers and competitors alike.
One of the really remarkable things about the motion picture industry is the ease with which it has adopted men whose training and experience have been gained in widely different fields and, with no regard to their previous experience but in distinct harmony with their executive qualifications, has advanced them to positions of leadership.
It might be expected that the film business would present serious obstacles to many men who are excellently qualified for front rank in other fields. It holds enough of the artistic element, inseparably tied up with the commercial, to call for rather different methods than those applying in ordinary commercial and technical lines of endeavor. But it is this very admixture which seems to provide an attraction that is lacking in most corners of the business world and that brings out as other industries do not the talents and enthusiasm which, combined with steady judgment, make for real achievement.
Military training and extensive experience in large engineering projects, for example, might seem to have little bearing on a man’s likelihood of success in a business that calls for a high order of artistic perception coupled with sales ingenuity. Yet such was the foundation on which Oscar Price, builder of hydro-electric enterprises, railroad executive and organizer of governmental activities in war time, built his place in the film business.
Born in Greenbrier county, West Virginia, educated in the public schools and in Greenbrier Military Academy, Mr. Price had his first really practical experience when he joined the United States Army in 1898, for service in the Spanish-American war. He entered the service as a second lieutenant and came out with the rank of captain, having seen service in Cuba, although to his regret he got there after the fighting was done.
After his army experience, he went in for hydro-electric work in Virginia and West Virginia. During a number of years his interest centered chiefly around projects on the Shenandoah river. He built an important plant at Ronceverte, W. Va., and established a reputation as a water-power authority, but more particularly established himself as an organizer of exceptional calibre.
Early in the Wilson administration, Mr. Price was called into the service of the government to undertake departmental work that called for the services of an expert in organization and personnel work. His first task was the reconstruction of the Auditor’s office in the Department of the Interior. Following the completion of that undertaking, he completely reorganized the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. By the time he had finished with it, the largest problem facing the administration was the raising of money for war needs and Mr. Price was put in charge of the second Liberty Loan. His work was largely responsible for its success and he laid all the foundations for the third loan. All of the publicity work on both issues was done under his immediate direction.
His next undertaking, one of even greater magnitude, had to do with the organization of the Railroad Administration. An Assistant Director-General of Railroads, he joined with William G. McAdoo, the Director General, in welding together the entire railroad structure of the country for war purposes and his days — and nights, too, for that matter — were devoted to this work until 1919, when he resigned.
In January, 1919, at Santa Barbara, Calif., Mr. Price organized the United Artists Corporation, becoming its first president in May of that year. A year later he resigned to organize the Associated Producers, Inc. This organization he merged with First National in 1921, but remained with it until May, 1922, when he had an opportunity to buy the film properties of the old Triangle organization. The reshaping and reissuing of the Triangle pictures, which are now put out under the name “Tri-stone Productions,” has been the chief interest of Mr. Price during the last two years. In the negatives which he acquired from Triangle, 2,505 in number, are releases featuring practically every star in the business with the exception of Mary Pickford and a few of the players who have achieved stardom in the last three years.
A considerable number of Tri-stone pictures, re-edited and substantially improved since their original release by Triangle, have already been placed on the independent market and out of the wealth of material at his disposal Mr. Price expects to be able to supply a wide range of thoroughly “tried and proved” pictures that, by virtue of exceptional casts and direction will prove up as box office aces.
The Tri-stone organization does not, by any means, afford the only outlet for his activities, since he is interested in numerous other projects, directly identified with the motion picture business. It is, however, the one in which he takes the keenest personal interest and which he expects to make a steadily more important factor in the independent field.
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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 23 August 1924
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