The autobiographical volume about the Hungarian founders of Hollywood, Adolf Zukor, and William Fox have been published as part of the „Magyarok Hollywoodban” (Hungarians in Hollywood) book series.
It will be published in Hungarian for the first time after many years of work – this can be read in the announcement of the Ministry of Human Resources (EMMI) which was sent to The Hungarian News Agency (MTI).
At the book presentation, Bence Rétvári, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of EMMI said:
„It is great pleasure and pride that, with the help of the Ministry of Human Resources, two autobiographical novels that had never been published in Hungarian could finally return home.”
Adolf Zukor’s (the founder of Paramount Pictures, the „Father” of American Filmmaking) autobiographical volume, „The Public is Never Wrong”, was published in 1953, and now can be read in Hungarian under the title: „A közönség sosem téved” (The Audience is Never Wrong). The biographical novel of Fried Vilmos, better known as William Fox, the founder of 20th Century Fox, the pioneer of sound film, was published in 1933, called „Upton Sinclar presents: William Fox”.
Bence Rétvári said at the book presentation: they laid the foundations for the Hollywood studio and star system, that still prevails to this day. Zukor was the producer of the first American feature film, while Fox was the pioneer of the sound film overseas. Their film won the first Oscar Statuette in film history in 1929. Zukor, twenty years later, in 1949, received an honorary Oscar. The statue stood on the following words: „The Father of the American Feature Film”
The announcement also cites Sándor Takó, the publisher and editor of the two volumes, who said: the two volumes will be part of the book series called Magyarok Hollywoodban.
„The job has not been completed with the return of the two oeuvres, but rather has begun, and we are working on several other publications within the series” – said Takó, highlighting the educational book Hollywood és a Magyarok (Hollywood and Hungarians), which will be published next year.
According to Tamás Kollarik, the editor of the volumes:
„The two life paths and the biographies go far beyond the presentation of personal destinies. They carry serious lessons, they connect cultures and nations. What Liszt and Bartók did in music, Kubala and Puskás did in football, Zukor and Fox did it in universal film culture” – said Kollarik, emphasizing that they were born on Hungarian soil, played a key role in „inventing” Hollywood and proudly professed that they are Hungarian-Americans, until the end of their lives.
