uses see rko disambiguation . rko radio pictures inc. former type corporation industry motion pictures predecessors keith albee orpheum corporation film booking offices of america radio corporation of america founded october 23 1928 1928 10 23 founders david sarnoff joseph p. kennedy sr. defunct january 31 1957 1957 01 31 headquarters 1270 avenue of the americas new york ny 10020 usa key people ted hartley dina merrill website http www.rko.com rko radio keith orpheum pictures also known as rko productions radio pictures rko radio pictures rko teleradio pictures and for a short time rko path was an american film production and distribution company . it was one of the big five studios of hollywood s golden age . the business was formed after the keith albee orpheum kao vaudeville theatre circuit and joseph p. kennedy s film booking offices of america fbo studio were brought together under the control of the radio corporation of america rca in october 1928 . a rca chief david sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company s sound on film technology rca photophone . by the mid 1940s the studio was under the control of investor floyd odlum . rko has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring fred astaire and ginger rogers in the mid to late 1930s . actors katharine hepburn and later robert mitchum had their first major successes at the studio . cary grant was a mainstay for years . the work of producer val lewton s low budget horror unit and rko s many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed largely after the fact by film critics and historians . the studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history king kong and citizen kane . maverick industrialist howard hughes took over rko in 1948 . after years of turmoil and decline under his control hughes sold the troubled studio to general tire and rubber company in 1955 . the original rko pictures ceased production in 1957 and was effectively dissolved two years later . in 1981 broadcaster rko general the corporate heir revived it as a production subsidiary rko pictures inc. in 1989 this business with its few remaining assets the trademarks and remake rights to many classic rko films was sold to new owners who now operate the small independent company rko pictures llc . contents 1 origin of company 2 golden age studio 2.1 early years 2.2 success under selznick 2.3 cooper at the helm 2.4 briskin and berman 2.5 kane and schaefer s troubles 2.6 rebound under koerner 2.7 focus on b movies 2.8 huac and howard hughes 2.9 turmoil under hughes 2.10 general tire and studio s demise 3 rko general 4 later incarnations 5 studio library 6 rko encino ranch 7 logos and historical documentary tv series 8 see also 9 notes 10 references 11 sources 12 external links origin of company edit in october 1927 warner bros. released the jazz singer the first feature length talking picture . its success prompted hollywood to convert from silent to sound film production en masse . the radio corporation of america rca controlled an advanced optical sound on film system rca photophone recently developed by general electric . however its hopes of joining in the anticipated boom in sound movies faced a major hurdle warner bros. and fox hollywood s other vanguard sound studios were already financially and technologically aligned with erpi a subsidiary of at & t s western electric division . the industry s two largest major studios paramount and loew s mgm with two other studios universal and first national were poised to contract with erpi for sound conversion as well . 1 early radio keith orpheum logo seeking a customer for photophone in late 1927 david sarnoff then general manager of rca approached joseph p. kennedy about using the system for kennedy s modest sized studio film booking offices of america fbo . negotiations resulted in general electric acquiring a substantial interest in fbo sarnoff had apparently already conceived of a plan for the company to attain a central position in the film industry maximizing photophone revenue . next on the agenda was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading hollywood production companies owned . kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase . around that time the large keith albee orpheum kao circuit of theaters built around the then fading medium of live vaudeville was attempting a transition to the movie business . in mid 1927 the filmmaking operations of path exchange and cecil b. de mille s producers distributing corporation pdc had united under kao s control . early in 1928 kao general manager john j. murdock who had assumed the presidency of path turned to kennedy as an adviser in consolidating the studio with de mille s company pdc . this was the relationship sarnoff and kennedy sought . 2 3 b after an aborted attempt by kennedy to bring yet another studio that had turned to him for help first national pictures into the photophone fold rca was ready to step back in the company acquired kennedy s stock in both fbo and the kao theater business . on october 23 1928 rca announced the creation of the radio keith orpheum holding company with sarnoff as chairman of the board . kennedy who withdrew from his executive positions in the merged companies kept path separate from rko and under his personal control . 2 4 rca owned the governing stock interest in rko 22 percent ; in the early 1930s rca s share of stock in the company rose as high as 60 percent . 5 the company s production and distribution arm presided over by former fbo vice president joseph i. schnitzer was incorporated early in 1929 as radio pictures . 6 looking to get out of the film business the following year kennedy arranged in late 1930 for rko to purchase path from him . on january 29 1931 path with its contract players well regarded newsreel operation and culver studios along with its associated backlot located more or less next door to the vastly larger mgm lot was merged into rko proper as kennedy sold off the last of his stock in the company he had been instrumental in creating . 7 golden age studio edit early years edit rio rita 1929 first smash hit for rko then releasing films under the radio pictures banner declaring that it would make only all talking films rko began shooting at the small facility fbo shared with path in new york city while the main fbo studio in hollywood was technologically refitted . 8 in charge of production was william lebaron who had held the same position at fbo . the new company s two initial releases were musicals the melodramatic syncopation premiered on march 29 1929 . 9 the comedic street girl debuted july 30 . this was billed as rko s first official production first to follow the formal incorporation of radio pictures first to be made in hollywood . 10 c a few nonsinging pictures followed but the studio s first major hit was again a musical . rko spent heavily on the lavish rio rita including a number of technicolor sequences . opening in september to rave reviews it was named one of the ten best pictures of the year by film daily . 11 cinema historian richard barrios credits it with initiating the first age of the filmed broadway musical . 12 by the end of the year rko was making use of an additional production facility five hundred acres that had been acquired near encino in the san fernando valley as a backlot for exteriors and large scale standing sets . 13 rko released a limited slate of twelve features in its first year ; in 1930 that figure more than doubled to twenty nine . 14 originally organized as the distinct business entities rko productions inc. and rko distributing corp. by july the studio was making a transition to the new unified rko radio pictures inc. 15 encouraged by rio rita s success rko produced several costly musicals incorporating technicolor sequences among them dixiana and hit the deck both scripted and directed like rio rita by luther reed . 16 following the example of the other major studios rko had planned to create its own musical revue radio revels . promoted as the studio s most extravagant production to date it was to be photographed entirely in technicolor . 17 the project was abandoned however as the public s taste for musicals temporarily subsided . from a total of more than sixty hollywood musicals in 1929 and over eighty the following year the number dropped to eleven in 1931 . 18 rko was left in a bind it still had a contract with technicolor to produce two more features with its system . complicating matters audiences had come to associate color with the momentarily out of favor musical genre due to a glut of such productions from the major hollywood studios . fulfilling its obligations rko produced two all technicolor pictures the runaround and fanny foley herself both 1931 containing no musical sequences . neither was a success . 19 even as the u.s. economy foundered rko had gone on a spending spree buying up theater after theater to add to its exhibition chain . in october 1930 the company purchased a 50 percent stake in the new york s van beuren studio which specialized in cartoons and live shorts . 20 rko s production schedule soon surpassed forty features a year released under the names radio pictures and for a short time after the 1931 merger rko path . cimarron 1931 produced by lebaron himself would become the only rko production to win the academy award for best picture ; nonetheless having cost a profligate 1.4 million to make it was a money loser on original domestic release . 21 d the most popular rko star of this pre code era was irene dunne who made her debut as the lead in the 1930 musical leathernecking and was a headliner at the studio for the entire decade . 22 other major performers included joel mccrea ricardo cortez dolores del r o and mary astor . richard dix oscar nominated for his lead performance in cimarron would serve as rko s standby b movie star until the early 1940s . 23 the comedy team of bert wheeler and robert woolsey often wrangling over ingenue dorothy lee was a bankable mainstay for years . 24 constance bennett ann harding and helen twelvetrees came over with path . 25 the path acquisition though a defensible investment in the long term for its physical facilities was yet another major expense borne by the fledgling rko particularly as path s stock price had been artificially inflated by some prepurchase finagling . 26 after little more than a year of semiautonomous operation within rko path was dissolved as a feature production unit . 27 success under selznick edit king kong 1933 one of hollywood s great spectacles exceptions like cimarron and rio rita aside rko s product was largely regarded as mediocre so in october 1931 twenty nine year old david o. selznick visited sarnoff in new york and convinced him to replace lebaron as production chief . 28 as the new studio chief selznick implemented rigorous cost control measures championed the unit production system which gave the producers of individual movies much greater independence than they had under the prevailing central producer system . under the factory system of production you rob the director of his individualism said selznick and this being a creative industry that is harmful to the quality of the product made even though selznick earned a sour reputation for meddling in director output . 29 instituting unit production he predicted would also