[MGSA-L] Skouras anniversary

Ilias Chrissochoidis ichriss at stanford.edu
Mon Nov 22 18:10:24 PST 2021


Dear MGSA list members,

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Spyros P. Skouras' death (1893-1971). The following resources offer a reminder of his achievements:

https://greekherald.com.au/community/1-people-community/interviews/biographer-ilias-chrissochoidis-retells-story-of-greek-american-film-pioneer-spyros-skouras/

original version [in Greek]:
https://www.academia.edu/60337216

tribute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3jLRIqIsI

Skouras youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDj5e20gvRBdWEBeeCG1uuA

I purposefully call Skouras "the most influential Greek since Alexander the Great" to make people realize that, as president of one of the big five American motion picture companies, he was influencing a global audience of 250 million. He was certainly the most influential Greek immigrant in American history: nobody else had access to the White House under six different presidents. FDR considered him a friend, as the Skouras brothers had initiated the selling of American War Bonds through the hundreds of movie theaters they controlled in the country. George Skouras, a Democrat, was personally involved in the selection of fellow Missourian Harry Truman as FDR's new Vice-President. Spyros, a Republican, played a critical role in convincing Eisenhower to run for the presidency. A young JFK was regularly sneaking into Skouras' private screening room to watch the new releases of 20th Century-Fox. LBJ was a personal friend whom Spyros publicly supported and voted for in 1964. And the selection of Agnew as Nixon's running mate would have been hardly possible without the lobbying of Skouras and other prominent Greek Americans.

His achievements in the film industry are well known. Suffice to say that we have been enjoying the widescreen format since 1953 thanks to his implementation of CinemaScope, a lethally risky investment worth $2.5 billion in today's money. And the futuristic look of Century City in LA is a reminder of his bold progressive vision. Alas, his effort, in the mid-1960s, to revolutionize the US commercial fleet collapsed due to strong reactions from shipyard unions.

His humanitarian record, which during the 1950s placed him alongside (Herbert) Hoover and Einstein, is practically unknown to contemporary Americans. Even more sadly, Greeks still ignore his role in saving millions from starvation and disease during the Occupation. No other country has poured so much money and humanitarian aid to Greece than the USA, thanks to Omogeneia and its father figures, such as Skouras. (Israel, too, ignores Skouras' role in convincing Truman to recognize the new state and his numerous deeds to support Israeli causes in America.)


"Why doesn't anybody know about these things?" I wondered ten years ago, after reading his autobiographical notes in Box 1 of the "Spyros P. Skouras Papers" at the Stanford Library Special Collections Reading Room. Surely because his family belatedly donated the papers to the university (1988) and they became publicly available only in 1992. But then, what is the excuse for not using them in the following two decades? (My online search yielded only three citations during this period, one by a Stanford doctoral student.) Perhaps it is the prohibitive cost of conducting Humanities archival research in the heart of Silicon Valley. Well, technology allows the digitization of archival material. Why don't they get digitized by Stanford, which now "reports ‘record year’ of investment returns, nets $12.1 billion in gains" (Stanford Daily, October 27. 2021)? Because Stanford does not support archival research nor the digitization of its special collections. In fact, the Special Collections department remains underfunded and understaffed for a number of years. It's a long-term undeclared policy of starving the Humanities. "Well, let me try to get you a donor. Just give me a tentative digitization budget to start discussions with a Greek Foundation." That was in 2017.

Along with the Vlavianos Collection at Cal State Sacramento (Tsakopoulos Collection) I consider the Skouras papers the most significant archival collection on Greek America. Yet they remain unexplored (and inaccessible to the public since March 17, 2020). History is not καραγκιόζ μπερντέ to project caricatures of personalities and distortions of events. We have missed the historical Spyros P. Skouras for forty years because of lack of access to primary sources. Until a serious examination of his record is undertaken, we will continue to suffer the clichés propagated by Hollywood gossip and a certain trash book from the late 1960s.

In late 1960, Skouras offered a CinemaScope projector to the Niarchos family in St. Moritz (see attachment) for them to have access to the latest widescreen film releases. Sixty years later, it would be a fair reciprocation for the Niarchos family to make available the Skouras papers to the widest possible readership. If anything, it would eliminate the need for posting long messages like this one.

Happy Thanksgiving!


Ilias Chrissochoidis, Ph.D.

Research Associate, Department of Music
Stanford University

http://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/
https://profiles.stanford.edu/ilias-chrissochoidis
https://stanford.academia.edu/ILIASCHRISSOCHOIDIS
http://www.youtube.com/chrissochoidis

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