Modern Hollywood was started by a group of independent filmmakers who moved to California in the 1910s to get away from Thomas Edison’s total monopoly on all aspects (scripts, cameras, theaters, actors) of the early, east coast film industry.
Thomas Edison
Unlike his famous father, Thomas Edison Jr….
Unlike his famous father, Thomas Edison Jr. was a terrible inventor. Eventually, he resorted to selling snake oil like the “Edison Magno-Electric Vitalizer”, embarrassing his father so much that he was given an allowance of 900 dollars a week to stop marketing his own “inventions”.
Thomas Edison would give potential employees…
Thomas Edison would give potential employees a bowl of soup during the interview, if they salted or peppered the soup before tasting it they wouldn’t get the job. This was to test whether the employees had analytical minds and didn’t make assumptions.
When Thomas Edison was confined to a wheelchair in…
When Thomas Edison was confined to a wheelchair in the last years of his life, his friend Henry Ford bought one too, so that they could have wheelchair races.
Louis Le Prince, who filmed the first ever motion pictures, disappeared…
Louis Le Prince, who filmed the first ever motion pictures, disappeared without a trace in 1890. Thomas Edison soon took credit as the first and sole inventor of cinema, and even took Le Prince’s son to court to dispute it. Few years later, the son also died under mysterious circumstances.
Thomas Edison taught his second wife Mor …
Thomas Edison taught his second wife Morse code so they could communicate in secret by tapping into each other’s hands when her family was around.
Thomas Edison’s last breath is stored i …
Thomas Edison’s last breath is stored in a test tube.