1. Leon Forrest Douglass was an American inventor and co-founder of the Victor Talking Machine Company who registered approximately fifty patents, mostly for film and sound recording techniques.
20 Facts About Leon Douglass
1. 2.
Leon Douglass's parents were Seymour James Douglass, a millwright and carpenter, and Mate Douglass.
3.
In 1888, Douglass saw a phonograph for the first time and was fascinated.
4.
Leon Douglass was elected vice president and treasurer, and secured a concession for a hundred slot phonographs at the World's Columbian Exposition, better known as the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.
5.
One business opportunity that Leon Douglass was unable to bring to fruition was a contract to exhibit Thomas Edison's kinetoscope at the World's Fair.
6.
Leon Douglass started doing business in September 1900 as The Consolidated Talking Machine Company but changed to using Johnson's name because of a conflict with a Berliner company name.
7.
Leon Douglass said it was named after his wife, but others think it more likely Johnson chose the name to celebrate his engineering and legal triumphs.
8.
Leon Douglass developed and patented the cabinet and stand that became the Victrola.
9.
Leon Douglass moved his family from Philadelphia to San Rafael, California.
10.
In 1918, Leon Douglass produced Cupid Angling, which may be the first American feature-length color film.
11.
In 1921 Leon Douglass moved his family to Menlo Park, California, where he bought a 52-room reinforced concrete mansion that had been built by Theodore Payne, a San Francisco hardware manufacturer.
12.
Leon Douglass named it Victoria Manor, in honor of his wife.
13.
Leon Douglass installed a workshop with lathes, milling machines, and drill presses in the basement, movie equipment on the first floor, and his laboratory workshop on the mezzanine.
14.
When he sold his holdings in Victor in January 1927, Leon Douglass became very wealthy.
15.
Leon Douglass won the suit by default when the defendants failed to respond.
16.
Leon Douglass had a window cut in the wall of the pool at Victoria Manor through which he filmed people swimming beneath the surface, usually his daughters Ena and Florence.
17.
In 1932, at the invitation of the Smithsonian Institution, Leon Douglass participated in a scientific expedition off Easter Island, where he filmed at depths up to 1,500 feet using his submarine cameras and an underwater "flashlight" that he patented.
18.
One of Leon Douglass' sons left his position with the Victor Talking Machine Company to start the Leon Douglass Lighter Company in San Francisco.
19.
In 1935, two of Leon Douglass' daughters died, one in a car accident and the other in childbirth, and Leon Douglass retired and he and his wife moved out of Victoria Manor into a small cottage nearby.
20.
Leon Douglass died in San Francisco at the age of 71.