Promotional Information

Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel (1882-1936) built an extraordinary career as film exhibitor, stage producer, radio broadcaster, musical arranger, theater manager, war propagandist, and international celebrity. The first book devoted to his multifaceted life and career, American Showman examines Rothafel's role as the key purveyor of a new film exhibition aesthetic that attracted audiences across economic classes and boundaries and his development of a new, convergent entertainment industry.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1. Roxy and Silent Film Exhibition 1. A New Art for a New Art Form (1908-1913) 2. Broadway Melody (1913-1917) 3. The Movie House as Recruiting Center (1917-1918) 4. "The Man Who Gave the Movies a College Education" (1919-1922) Part 2. Roxy and the Emergence of Convergence 5. A Capitol Idea (1922-1925) 6. "It's the Roxy and I'm Roxy" (1925-1927) 7. It's All Playing in Sheboygan (1928-1931) 8. The Prologue Is Past (1931-1936) Afterword Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author

Ross Melnick is assistant professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. in cinema and media studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a postdoctoral fellowship from Emory University. He has worked as a curator at the Museum of the Moving Image and in marketing for Loews Cineplex, Miramax, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and DreamWorks, and in film distribution for Sony Pictures. With Andreas Fuchs, he is the coauthor of Cinema Treasures.

Reviews

[An] eye-poppingly informative new book... To paraphrase Frank Loesser's 'Guys and Dolls,' with the publication of American Showman, the question 'What's playing at the Roxy?' can now be answered: 'First-rate cultural history.' -- Mindy Aloff Washington Post [American Showman] provides valuable insight into Roxy's dynamic contemporary moment--one characterized by world military strife, economic downturn, and a blossoming of technological innovation. Publishers Weekly [An] exhaustive biography. -- Ethan Mordden Wall Street Journal Dr. Melnick skillfully captures the substance and durability of Rothafel's prolific life.New York Times -- Sam Roberts New York Times A penetrating, exhaustive contextualized study of Roxy's crucial role in every aspect of the early film industry...highly recommended. Choice American Showman is a fascinating, passionate, and definitive biography of Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel... Melnick unveils aspects of Rothafel's career that change our understanding of American film history from the late 1910s to the early 1930s. -- Charles Musser Journal of American History For anyone interested in the historical transition from the Nickelodeon era to the classical Hollywood cinema, Ross Melnick's American Showman is a must read. -- Jan-Christopher Horak UCLA Film & Television Archive An impeccably researched and definitive study of Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel -- Bernard F. Dick American Studies Roxy?'s extraordinary life, as Melnick illustrates, serves as a powerful lens through which to examine a dynamic age of cultural change in American life. -- Josh Glick Business History Review Anyone who cares about the development of film exhibition in the early 20th century should consider it essential reading... even a casual film buff will find much to enjoy... the book is well written and not overly burdened with jargon. -- Leonard Maltin Indiewire With so many greatly exaggerated reports of the death of cinema abroad, what a pleasure to read Ross Melnick's scrupulously researched, exhaustive biography of movie-palace impresario Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel -- a biography that doubles as a cultural history, looking to a moment when the movies were the upstarts, making vaudeville and live theatre quake in their boots. -- Nick Pinkerton Sight & Sound