company name	RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
company logo
company type	Corporation
foundation	1929 (as RKO Productions Inc., subsidiary of Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp.)
defunct	1959 (de facto)
location	1270 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY
industry	Motion pictures }}

RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chains 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. 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 cycle 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 decline under his control, the studio was acquired by the 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.

Origin of company

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, Photophone, recently developed by General Electric, RCA's parent company. 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 studio, were already financially and technologically aligned with ERPI, a subsidiary of AT&T;'s Western Electric division. The industry's two largest companies, Paramount and Loew's/MGM, with two other major studios, Universal and First National, were poised to contract with ERPI for sound conversion as well. Seeking a customer for Photophone, in late 1927 David Sarnoff, then general manager of RCA, approached Joseph 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 Pathé (U.S.) and Cecil B. De Mille had united under KAO's control. Early in 1928, KAO general manager John J. Murdock, who had assumed the presidency of Pathé, turned to Kennedy as an adviser in consolidating the studio with De Mille's company, Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC). This was the relationship Sarnoff and Kennedy sought.

After an aborted attempt by Kennedy to bring yet another studio that had turned to him for help, First National, 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 Pathé separate from RKO and under his personal control. 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. 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. Looking to get out of the film business the following year, Kennedy arranged in late 1930 for RKO to purchase Pathé from him. On January 29, 1931, Pathé, with its contract players, well-regarded newsreel operation, and Culver City studio and backlot, was merged into RKO as Kennedy sold off the last of his stock in the company he had been instrumental in creating.

Golden Age studio

Early years

Declaring that it would make only all-talking films, RKO began shooting at the small facility FBO shared with Pathé in New York City while the main FBO studio in Hollywood was technologically refitted. 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. 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. 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''. Cinema historian Richard Barrios credits it with initiating the "first age of the filmed Broadway musical". By the end of the year, RKO was making use of an additional production facility—five hundred acres had been acquired near Encino in the San Fernando Valley as a backlot for exteriors and large-scale standing sets.

RKO released a limited slate of twelve features in its first year; in 1930, that figure more than doubled to twenty-nine. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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 Pathé". ''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. 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. Other major performers included Joel McCrea, Ricardo Cortez, Dolores del Río, 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. The comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, often wrangling over ingenue Dorothy Lee, was a bankable mainstay for years. Constance Bennett, Ann Harding, and Helen Twelvetrees came over with Pathé. The Pathé 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 Pathé's stock price had been artificially inflated by some prepurchase finagling. After little more than a year of semiautonomous operation within RKO, Pathé was dissolved as a feature production unit.

Success under Selznick

Exceptions like ''Cimarron'' and ''Rio Rita'' aside, RKO's product was largely regarded as mediocre, so in October 1931 Sarnoff hired twenty-nine-year-old David O. Selznick to replace LeBaron as production chief. In addition to implementing rigorous cost-control measures, Selznick 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." Instituting unit production, he predicted, would also result in cost savings of 30–40 percent. To make films under the new system, Selznick recruited prize behind-the-camera personnel, such as director George Cukor and producer/director Merian C. Cooper, and gave producer Pandro S. Berman, aged twenty-six, increasingly important projects. Selznick discovered and signed a young actress who would quickly become one of the studio's biggest stars, Katharine Hepburn. John Barrymore was also enlisted for a few memorable performances. From September 1932 on, print advertising for the company's features displayed the revised name "RKO Radio Pictures"; the Pathé name was used only for newsreels and documentaries. That year, the New York City–based corporate headquarters moved into the new RKO Building, an Art Deco skyscraper that was one of the first Rockefeller Center structures to open.

Selznick spent a mere fifteen months as RKO production chief, resigning over a dispute with new corporate president Merlin Aylesworth concerning creative control. One of his last acts at RKO was to approve a screen test for a thirty-three-year-old, balding Broadway song-and-dance man named Fred Astaire. In a memo, Selznick wrote, "I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is ... tremendous". Selznick's tenure was widely considered masterful: In 1931, before he arrived, the studio had produced forty-two features for $16 million in total budgets. In 1932, under Selznick, forty-one features were made for $10.2 million, with clear improvement in quality and popularity. He backed several major successes, including ''A Bill of Divorcement'' (1932), with Cukor directing Hepburn's debut, and the monumental ''King Kong'' (1933)—largely Merian Cooper's brainchild, brought to life by the astonishing special effects work of Willis O'Brien. Still, the shaky finances and excesses that marked the company's pre-Selznick days had not left RKO in shape to withstand the Depression; the company sank into receivership in early 1933, from which it did not emerge until 1940.

Cooper at the helm

Cooper took over as production head after Selznick's departure and oversaw two hits starring Hepburn: ''Morning Glory'' (1933), for which she won her first Oscar, and ''Little Women'' (1933), director Cukor's second collaboration with the actress. Among the studio's in-house productions, the latter was the biggest box-office success of the decade. Ginger Rogers had already made several minor films for RKO when Cooper signed her to a seven-year contract and cast her in the big-budget musical ''Flying Down to Rio'' (1933). Rogers was paired with Astaire, making his movie debut. Billed fourth and fifth respectively, the picture turned them into stars. Hermes Pan, assistant to the film's dance director, would become one of Hollywood's leading choreographers through his subsequent work with Astaire.

Along with Columbia Pictures, RKO became one of the primary homes of the screwball comedy. As film historian James Harvey describes, compared to their richer competition, the two studios were "more receptive to experiment, more tolerant of chaos on the set. It was at these two lesser 'majors'...that nearly all the preeminent screwball directors did their important films—[Howard] Hawks and [Gregory] La Cava and [Leo] McCarey and [George] Stevens." The relatively unheralded William A. Seiter directed the studio's first significant contribution to the genre, ''The Richest Girl in the World'' (1934). The drama ''Of Human Bondage'' (1934), directed by John Cromwell, was Bette Davis's first great success. Stevens's ''Alice Adams'' and director John Ford's ''The Informer'' were each nominated for the 1935 Best Picture Oscar—the Best Director statuette won by Ford was the only one ever given for an RKO production. ''The Informer'''s star, Victor McLaglen, also took home an Academy Award; he would appear in a dozen movies for the studio over a span of two decades.

Lacking the financial resources of industry leaders MGM, Paramount, and Fox, RKO turned out many pictures during the era that made up for it with high style in an Art Deco mode, exemplified by such Astaire–Rogers musicals as ''The Gay Divorcee'' (1934), their first pairing as leads, and ''Top Hat'' (1935). One of the figures most responsible for that style was another Selznick recruit: Van Nest Polglase, chief of RKO's highly regarded design department for almost a decade. Film historian James Naremore has described RKO as "chiefly a designer's studio. It never had a stable of important actors, writers, or directors, but ... it was rich in artists and special-effects technicians. As a result its most distinctive pictures contained a strong element of fantasy—not so much the fantasy of horror, which during the thirties was the province of Universal, but the fantasy of the marvelous and adventurous."

As a group, the studio's craft divisions were among the strongest in the industry. Costumer Walter Plunkett, who worked with the company from the close of the FBO era through the end of 1939, was known as the top period wardrobist in the business. Sidney Saunders, innovative head of the studio's paint department, was responsible for significant progress in rear projection quality. On June 13, 1935, RKO premiered the first feature film shot entirely in advanced three-strip Technicolor, ''Becky Sharp''. The movie was coproduced with Pioneer Pictures, founded by Cooper—who departed RKO after two years helming production—and John Hay "Jock" Whitney, who brought in his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney; Cooper had successfully encouraged the Whitneys to purchase a major share of the Technicolor business as well. Though judged by critics a failure as drama, ''Becky Sharp'' was widely lauded for its visual brilliance and technical expertise. RKO also employed some of the industry's leading artists and craftsmen whose work was never seen. From the studio's earliest days through late 1935, Max Steiner, regarded by many historians as the most influential composer of the early years of sound cinema, made music for over 100 RKO films. Murray Spivak, head of the studio's audio special effects department, made important advances in the use of rerecording technology first heard in ''King Kong''.

Briskin and Berman

In October 1935 the ownership team expanded, with financier Floyd Odlum leading a syndicate that bought 50 percent of RCA's stake in the company; the Rockefeller brothers, also major stockholders, increasingly became involved in the business. While RKO kept missing the mark in building Hepburn's career, major stars Cary Grant and Barbara Stanwyck joined the studio's roster—though Stanwyck would have little success during her few years there. Grant was a trendsetter, one of the first leading men of the sound era to work extensively as a freelancer, under nonexclusive studio deals, while his star was still on the rise. Ann Sothern starred in seven RKO films between 1935 and 1937, paired five times with Gene Raymond.

Soon after the appointment of a new production chief, Samuel Briskin, in late 1935, RKO entered into an important distribution deal with animator Walt Disney (Van Beuren consequently folded its cartoon operations). From 1936 to 1954, the studio released his features and shorts; ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' (1937) was the highest grossing movie in the period between ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939). Following the change in print branding a few years earlier, the opening and closing logos on RKO movies, other than the Pathé nonfiction line, were changed from "Radio Pictures" to "RKO Radio Pictures" in 1936. In February 1937, Selznick, now a leading independent producer, took over RKO's Culver City studio and Forty Acres, as the backlot was known, under a long-term lease. ''Gone with the Wind'', his coproduction with MGM, was largely shot there. In addition to its central Hollywood studio, RKO production now revolved around its Encino backlot. While the Disney association was beneficial, RKO's own product was widely seen as declining in quality and Briskin was gone by the end of the year.

Pandro Berman—who had filled in on three previous occasions—accepted the position of production chief on a noninterim basis. As it turned out, he would leave the job before the decade's turn, but his brief tenure resulted in some of the most notable films in studio history, including ''Gunga Din'', with Grant and McLaglen; ''Love Affair'', starring Dunne and Charles Boyer; and ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' (all 1939). Charles Laughton, who gave a now fabled performance as Quasimodo in the latter, returned periodically to the studio, headlining six more RKO features. For Maureen O'Hara, who made her American screen debut in the film, it was the first of ten pictures she would make for RKO through 1952. After costarring with Ginger Rogers for the eighth time in ''The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle'' (1939), Fred Astaire departed the studio.

The studio's B Western star of the period was George O'Brien, who made eighteen RKO pictures, sixteen between 1938 and 1940. ''The Saint in New York'' (1938) successfully launched a B detective series featuring the character Simon Templar that would run through 1943. The Wheeler and Woolsey comedy series ended in 1937 when Woolsey became ill (he died the following year). RKO filled the void by releasing independently produced features such as the Dr. Christian series and the Laurel and Hardy comedy ''The Flying Deuces'' (1939). The studio soon had its own new B comedy star in Lupe Vélez: ''The Girl from Mexico'' (1939) was followed by seven frantic installments of the Mexican Spitfire series, all featuring Leon Errol, between 1940 and 1943. The studio's technical departments maintained their reputation as industry leaders; Vernon Walker's special effects unit became famous for its sophisticated use of the optical printer and lifelike matte work, an art that would reach its apex with 1941's ''Citizen Kane.''

''Kane'' and Schaefer's troubles

Pan Berman had received his first screen credit in 1925 as a nineteen-year-old assistant director on FBO's ''Midnight Molly''. He departed RKO in December 1939 after policy clashes with studio president George J. Schaefer, handpicked the previous year by the Rockefellers and backed by Sarnoff. With Berman gone, Schaefer became in effect production chief, though other men—including the former head of the industry censorship board, Joseph I. Breen—nominally filled the role. Schaefer, announcing his philosophy with a new studio slogan, "Quality Pictures at a Premium Price", was keen on signing up independent producers whose films RKO would distribute. In 1941, the studio landed one of the most prestigious independents in Hollywood when it arranged to handle Samuel Goldwyn's productions. The first two Goldwyn pictures released by the studio were highly successful: ''The Little Foxes'', directed by William Wyler and starring Bette Davis, garnered four Oscar nominations, while the Howard Hawks–directed ''Ball of Fire'' at last brought Barbara Stanwyck a hit under the RKO banner. However, Schaefer agreed to terms so favorable to Goldwyn that it was next to impossible for the studio to make money off his films. David O. Selznick loaned out his leading contracted director for two RKO pictures in 1941: Alfred Hitchcock's ''Mr. and Mrs. Smith'' was a modest success and ''Suspicion'' a more substantial one, with an Oscar-winning turn by Joan Fontaine.

That May, RKO released ''Citizen Kane'', coproducing with director Orson Welles's Mercury Productions. While it opened to strong reviews and would go on to be hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made, it lost money at the time and brought down the wrath of the Hearst newspaper chain on RKO. The next year saw the commercial failure of Welles's ''The Magnificent Ambersons''—like ''Kane'', critically lauded and overbudget—and the expensive embarrassment of his aborted documentary ''It's All True''. The three Mercury productions combined to drain $2 million from the RKO coffers, major money for a corporation that had reported an overall deficit of $1 million in 1940 and a nominal profit of a bit more than $500,000 in 1941. Many of RKO's other artistically ambitious pictures were also dying at the box office and it was losing its last exclusive deal with a major star as well. Rogers, after winning an Oscar in 1941 for her performance in the previous year's ''Kitty Foyle'', held out for a freelance contract like Grant's; after 1943, she would appear in just one more RKO production, thirteen years later. On June 17, 1942, Schaefer tendered his resignation. He departed a weakened and troubled studio, but RKO was about to turn the corner. Propelled by the box-office boom of World War II and guided by new management, RKO would make a strong comeback over the next half-decade.

Rebound under Koerner

By the end of June 1942, Floyd Odlum had taken over a controlling interest in the company via his Atlas Corporation, edging aside the Rockefellers and Sarnoff. Charles Koerner, former head of the RKO theater chain and allied with Odlum, had assumed the title of production chief some time prior to Schaefer's departure. With Schaefer gone, Koerner could actually do the job; announcing a policy of "entertainment, not genius" (a snipe at Schaefer's artistic ambitions in general and his sponsorship of Welles in particular), he brought the studio much-needed stability until his death in February 1946. The change in RKO's fortunes was virtually immediate: corporate profits rose from $736,241 in 1942 (the theatrical division compensating for the studio's $2.34 million deficit) to $6.96 million the following year. The Rockefellers sold off their stock and, early in 1943, RCA dispensed with the last of its holdings in the company as well, cutting David Sarnoff's ties to the studio that was largely his conception. In June 1944, RKO created a television production subsidiary, RKO Television Corporation, to provide content for the new medium. RKO became the first major studio to produce for television with ''Talk Fast, Mister'', a one-hour drama filmed at RKO-Pathé studios in New York and broadcast by the DuMont network's New York station, WABD, on December 18, 1944. In collaboration with Mexican businessman Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, RKO established Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City in 1945. With RKO on increasingly secure ground, Koerner sought to increase its output of handsomely budgeted, star-driven features. However, the studio's only remaining major stars under anything like extended contracts were Grant, whose services were shared with Columbia Pictures, and O'Hara, shared with Twentieth Century-Fox. Lacking in-house stars, Koerner and his successors under Odlum arranged with the other studios to loan out their biggest names or signed one of the growing number of freelance performers to short-term, "pay or play" deals. Thus RKO pictures of the mid- and late forties offered Bing Crosby, Henry Fonda, and others who were out of the studio's price range for extended contracts. John Wayne appeared in 1943's ''A Lady Takes a Chance'' on loan from Republic Pictures; he was soon working regularly with RKO, making nine more movies for the studio. Gary Cooper appeared in RKO releases produced by Goldwyn and, later, the startup International Pictures, and Claudette Colbert starred in a number of RKO coproductions. Ingrid Bergman appeared under a variety of hats: on loan out from Selznick in ''The Bells of St. Mary's'' (1945), the biggest hit of any in-house RKO production during the 1940s; in the coproductions ''Notorious'' (1946) and ''Stromboli'' (1950); and in the independently produced ''Joan of Arc'' (1948). Freelancing Randolph Scott appeared in one major RKO release annually from 1943 through 1948.

In similar fashion, many leading directors made one or more films at RKO during this era, including Alfred Hitchcock once more, with ''Notorious'', and Jean Renoir, with ''This Land Is Mine'' (1943), reuniting Laughton and O'Hara, and ''The Woman on the Beach'' (1947). John Ford's ''The Fugitive'' (1947) and ''Fort Apache'' (1948), which appeared right before studio ownership changed hands again, were followed by ''She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'' (1949) and ''Wagon Master'' (1950); all four were co-productions between RKO and Argosy, the company run by Ford and RKO alumnus Merian C. Cooper. Of the directors under long-term contract to RKO in the 1940s, the best known was Edward Dmytryk, who first came to notice with the remarkably profitable ''Hitler's Children'' (1943). Shot on a $205,000 budget placing it in the bottom quartile of Big Five studio productions, it was one of the ten biggest Hollywood hits of the year. Another low-cost war-themed film directed by Dmytryk, ''Behind the Rising Sun'', released a few months later, was similarly profitable.

Focus on B movies

Much more than the other Big Five studios, RKO relied on B pictures to fill up its schedule. Of the thirty-one features released by RKO in 1944, for instance, ten were budgeted below $200,000, twelve were in the $200,000 to $500,000 range, and only nine cost more. In contrast, a clear majority of the features put out by the other top four studios were budgeted at over a half a million dollars. A focus on B pictures limited the studio's financial risk; while it also limited the potential for reward (Dmytryk's extraordinary coups aside), RKO had a history of making better profits with its run-of-the-mill and low-cost product than with its A movies. Robson and Wise received their first directing assignments with producer Val Lewton, whose specialized B horror unit also included the more experienced director Jacques Tourneur. The Lewton unit's moody, atmospheric work—represented by films such as ''Cat People'' (1942), ''I Walked with a Zombie'' (1943), and ''The Body Snatcher'' (1945)—is now highly regarded. Richard Dix concluded his lengthy RKO career with the 1943 Lewton production ''The Ghost Ship''. Tim Holt was RKO's cowboy star of the era, appearing in forty-six B Westerns and more than fifty movies altogether for the studio. In 1940, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff brought their famous comic characters Lum and Abner from radio to RKO for a six-film run. The Falcon detective series began in 1941; the Saint and the Falcon were so similar that Saint creator Leslie Charteris sued RKO. The Falcon was first played by George Sanders, who had appeared five times as the Saint. He bowed out after four Falcon films and was replaced by his brother, Tom Conway. Conway had a nine-film run in the part before the series ended in 1946. Johnny Weissmuller starred in six Tarzan pictures for RKO between 1943 and 1948 before being replaced by Lex Barker.

Film noir, to which lower budgets lent themselves, became something of a house style at the studio; indeed, the RKO B ''Stranger on the Third Floor'' (1940) is widely seen as initiating noir's classic period. Its cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca, who began at FBO in the 1920s and stayed with RKO through 1954, is a central figure in creating the look of classic noir. Design chief Albert D'Agostino—another long-termer, who succeeded Van Nest Polglase in 1941—and art director Walter Keller, along with others in the department, such as art directors Carroll Clark and Jack Okey and set decorator Darrell Silvera, are similarly credited. The studio's 1940s list of contract players was filled with noir regulars: Robert Mitchum (who graduated to major star status) and Robert Ryan each made no fewer than ten film noirs for RKO. Gloria Grahame, Jane Greer, and Lawrence Tierney were also notable studio players in the field. Freelancer George Raft starred in two noir hits: ''Johnny Angel'' (1945) and ''Nocturne'' (1946). Tourneur, Musuraca, Mitchum, and Greer, along with D'Agostino's design group, joined to make the A-budgeted ''Out of the Past'' (1947), now considered one of the greatest of all film noirs. Nicholas Ray began his directing career with the noir ''They Live by Night'' (1948), the first of a number of well-received films he made for RKO.

HUAC and Howard Hughes

RKO, and the movie industry as a whole, had its most profitable year ever in 1946. A Goldwyn production released by RKO, ''The Best Years of Our Lives'', was the most successful Hollywood film of the decade. But the legal status of the industry's reigning business model was increasingly being called into doubt: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in ''Bigelow v. RKO'' that the company was liable for damages under antitrust statutes for having denied an independent movie house access to first run films—a common practice among all of the Big Five. With profits at a high point, Floyd Odlum cashed in by selling off about 40 percent of his shares in the company to a group of investment firms. After Koerner's death, Radio-Keith-Orpheum president N. Peter Rathvon and RKO Radio Pictures president Ned Depinet had exchanged positions, with Depinet moving to the corporate offices in New York and Rathvon relocating to Hollywood and doubling as production chief while a permanent replacement was sought for Koerner. On the first day of 1947, producer and Oscar-winning screenwriter Dore Schary, who had been working at the studio on loan from Selznick, took over the role.

RKO appeared in good shape to build on its recent successes, but the year brought a number of unpleasant harbingers for all of Hollywood. The British government imposed a 75 percent tax on films produced abroad; along with similarly confiscatory taxes and quota laws enacted by other countries, this led to a sharp decline in foreign revenues. The postwar attendance boom peaked sooner than expected and television emerged as a competitor for audience interest. Across the board, profits fell—a 27 percent drop for the Hollywood studios from 1946 to 1947. The phenomenon that would become known as McCarthyism was building strength, and in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began hearings into Communism in the motion picture industry. Two of RKO's top talents, Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott, refused to cooperate. As a consequence, they were fired by RKO per the terms of the Waldorf Statement, the major studios' pledge to "eliminate any subversives". Scott, Dmytryk, and eight others who also defied HUAC—dubbed the Hollywood Ten—were blacklisted across the industry. Ironically, the studio's major success of the year was ''Crossfire'', a Scott–Dmytryk film. Odlum concluded it was time to exit the film business, and he put his remaining RKO shares—approximately 25 percent of the outstanding stock—on the market. Before the turn of the year, the Pathé-branded newsreel was sold to Warner Bros. For her performance in ''The Farmer's Daughter'' (1947), a coproduction with Selznick's Vanguard Films, Loretta Young won the Best Actress Oscar the following March. It would turn out to be the last major Academy Award for an RKO picture.

In May 1948, eccentric aviation tycoon and occasional movie producer Howard Hughes gained control of the company, beating out British film magnate J. Arthur Rank as the buyer of Odlum's interest. During Hughes's tenure, RKO suffered its worst years since the early 1930s, as his capricious management style took a heavy toll. Production chief Schary quit almost immediately due to his new boss's interference and Rathvon soon followed. Within weeks of taking over, Hughes had dismissed three-fourths of the work force; production was virtually shut down for six months as the conservative Hughes shelved or canceled several of the "message pictures" that Schary had backed. Once shooting picked up again, Hughes quickly became notorious for meddling in minute production matters, particularly the presentation of actresses he favored. All of the Big Five saw their profits dwindle in 1948—from Fox, down 11 percent, to Loew's/MGM, down 62 percent—but at RKO they virtually vanished: from $5.1 million in 1947 to $0.5 million, a drop of 90 percent. The production-distribution end of the RKO business, now deep in the red, would never make a profit again.

Offscreen, Robert Mitchum's arrest and conviction for marijuana possession—he would serve two months in jail—was widely assumed to mean career death for RKO's most promising young star, but Hughes surprised the industry by announcing that his contract was not endangered. Of much broader significance, Hughes decided to get the jump on his Big Five competitors by being the first to settle the federal government's antitrust suit against the major studios, which had won a crucial Supreme Court ruling in ''United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.'' Under the consent decree he signed, Hughes agreed to dissolve the old parent company, Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp., and split RKO's production-distribution business and its exhibition chain into two entirely separate corporations—RKO Pictures Corp. and RKO Theatres Corp.—with the obligation to promptly sell off one or the other. While Hughes delayed the divorcement procedure until December 1950 and didn't actually sell his stock in the theater company for another three years, his decision to acquiesce was one of the crucial steps in the collapse of classical Hollywood's studio system.

Turmoil under Hughes

While Hughes's time at RKO was marked by dwindling production and a slew of expensive flops, the studio continued to turn out some well-received films under production chiefs Sid Rogell and Sam Bischoff, though both became fed up with Hughes's meddling and quit after less than two years. (Bischoff would be the last man to hold the job under Hughes.) There were B noirs such as ''The Window'' (1949), which turned into a hit, and ''The Set-Up'' (1949), directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Ryan, which won the Critic's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. ''The Thing from Another World'' (1951), a science-fiction drama coproduced with Howard Hawks's Winchester Pictures, is seen as a classic of the genre. In 1952, RKO put out two films directed by Fritz Lang, ''Rancho Notorious'' and ''Clash by Night''. The latter was a project of the renowned Jerry Wald–Norman Krasna production team, lured by Hughes from Warner Bros. with great fanfare in August 1950.

The company also began a close working relationship with Ida Lupino. She starred in two suspense films with Robert Ryan—Nicholas Ray's ''On Dangerous Ground'' (1952, though shooting had been completed two years earlier) and ''Beware, My Lovely'' (1952), a coproduction between RKO and Lupino's company, The Filmakers. Of more historic note, Lupino was Hollywood's only female director during the period; of the five pictures The Filmakers made with RKO, Lupino directed three, including her now celebrated ''The Hitch-Hiker'' (1953). Exposing many moviegoers to Asian cinema for the first time, RKO distributed Akira Kurosawa's epochal ''Rashomon'' in the United States, sixteen months after its original 1950 Japanese release. The only smash hits released by RKO in the 1950s came out during this period, but neither was an in-house production: Goldwyn's ''Hans Christian Andersen'' (1952) was followed by Disney's ''Peter Pan'' (1953).

In early 1952, Hughes fought off a lawsuit by screenwriter Paul Jarrico, who had been caught up in the latest round of HUAC hearings—Hughes had fired him and removed his name from the credits of a recent release. The studio owner subsequently ordered 100 RKO employees on "leave of absence" while he established a "security office" to oversee an ideological vetting system. "We are going to screen everyone in a creative or executive capacity", he declared. "The work of Communist sympathizers will not be used." As more credits were expunged, some in the industry began to question whether Hughes's hunt for subversives served primarily as a convenient rationale for further curtailing production and trimming expenses.

In September, Hughes and his corporate president, Ned E. Depinet, sold their RKO studio stock to a Chicago-based syndicate with no experience in the movie business; the syndicate's chaotic reign lasted until February 1953, when the stock and control were reacquired by Hughes. The studio's net loss in 1952 was over $10 million, and shooting had taken place for just a single in-house production over the last five months of the year. During the turmoil, Samuel Goldwyn ended his 11-year-long distribution deal with RKO. Wald and Krasna escaped their contracts and the studio as well. The deal that brought the team to RKO had called for them to produce sixty features over five years; in just shy of half that time, they succeeded in making four. The Encino backlot shut down permanently in 1953 and the property was sold off. In November, Hughes finally fulfilled his obligations under the 1948 consent decree, divesting RKO Theatres; Albert A. List purchased the controlling interest in the business and renamed it List Industries. Hughes soon found himself the target of no less than five separate lawsuits filed by minority shareholders in RKO, accusing him of malfeasance in his dealings with the Chicago group and a wide array of acts of mismanagement. "RKO's contract list is down to three actors and 127 lawyers", quipped Dick Powell.

Looking to forestall the impending legal imbroglio, in early 1954 Hughes offered to buy out all of RKO's other stockholders. Convinced that the studio was sinking, Walt Disney ended his arrangement with RKO and set up his own distribution firm, Buena Vista Pictures. By the end of the year, at a cost of $23.5 million, Hughes had gained near-total control of RKO Pictures, becoming the first virtual sole owner of a studio since Hollywood's pioneer days. Virtual, but not quite actual. Floyd Odlum reemerged to block Hughes from acquiring the 95 percent ownership of RKO stock he needed to write off the company's losses against his earnings elsewhere. Hughes had reneged on his promise to give Odlum first option on buying the RKO theater chain when he divested it and was now paying the price. With negotiations between the two at a stalemate, in July 1955, Hughes turned around and sold RKO pictures to the General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. For Hughes, this was the effective end of a quarter-century's involvement in the movie business. Historian Betty Lasky describes Hughes's relationship with RKO as a "systematic seven-year rape."

General Tire and studio's demise

In taking control of the studio, General Tire restored RKO's links to broadcasting. General Tire had bought the Yankee Network, a New England regional radio network, in 1943. In 1950, it purchased the West Coast regional Don Lee Broadcasting System, and two years later, the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owner of the WOR TV and radio stations in New York City. The latter acquisition gave General Tire majority control of the Mutual Broadcasting System, one of America's leading radio networks. General Tire then merged its broadcasting interests into a new division, General Teleradio.

Thomas O'Neil, son of General Tire's founder William O'Neil and chairman of the broadcasting group, saw that the company's new television stations, indeed all TV outlets, were in need of programming. With the purchase of RKO, the studio's library was his, and rights to the 742 films to which RKO retained clear title were quickly put up for sale. C&C; Television Corp., a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane, won the bidding in December 1955. It was soon offering the films to independent stations in a package called "MovieTime USA". RKO Teleradio Pictures—the new company created from the merger of General Teleradio and the RKO studio—retained the broadcast rights for the cities where it owned TV stations. By 1956, RKO's classic movies were playing widely on television, allowing many to see such films as ''Citizen Kane'' for the first time. The $15.2 million RKO made on the deal convinced the other major studios that their libraries held profit potential—a turning point in the way Hollywood did business.

The new owners of RKO made an initial effort to revive the studio, hiring veteran producer William Dozier to head production. In the first half of 1956, the production facilities were as busy as they had been in a half-decade. RKO Teleradio Pictures released Fritz Lang's final two American films, ''While the City Sleeps'' and ''Beyond a Reasonable Doubt'' (both 1956), but years of mismanagement had driven away many directors, producers, and stars. The latter, starring John Wayne, was the biggest hit produced at the studio during the decade, but its $4.5 million in North American rentals did not come close to covering its $6 million cost.

After a year and a half without a notable success, General Tire shut down production at RKO for good at the end of January 1957. The Hollywood and Culver City facilities were sold later that year for $6.15 million to Desilu Productions, owned by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who had been an RKO contract player from 1935 to 1942. Desilu would be acquired by Gulf and Western Industries in 1967 and merged into G+W's other production company, Paramount Pictures; the former RKO Hollywood studio became home to Paramount Television (now CBS Paramount Television), which it remains to this day. The renovated Culver City studio is now owned and operated as an independent production facility. Forty Acres, the Culver City backlot, was razed in the mid-1970s. List Industries, the former RKO Theatres Corp., was acquired by Glen Alden Corp. in 1959. After Glen Alden's 1967 acquisition of the Stanley Warner theater group, the two chains were merged into RKO–Stanley Warner Theatres. Cinerama purchased the exhibition circuit from Glen Alden in 1971.

With the closing down of production, RKO also shut its distribution exchanges; from 1957 forward, remaining pictures were released through other companies, primarily Universal-International. The final RKO film, ''Verboten!'', a coproduction with director Samuel Fuller's Globe Enterprises, was released by Columbia Pictures in March 1959. That same year, "Pictures" was stripped from the corporate identity; the holding company for General Tire's broadcasting operation and the few remaining motion picture assets was renamed RKO General. In the words of scholar Richard B. Jewell, "The supreme irony of RKO's existence is that the studio earned a position of lasting importance in cinema history largely ''because'' of its extraordinarily unstable history. Since it was the weakling of Hollywood's 'majors,' RKO welcomed a diverse group of individualistic creators and provided them...with an extraordinary degree of freedom to express their artistic idiosyncrasies.... [I]t never became predictable and it never became a factory."

==RKO General== One of North America's major radio and television broadcasters from the 1950s through the late 1980s, RKO General traces its roots to the 1943 purchase of the Yankee Network by General Tire. In 1952, the company united its newly expanded broadcasting interests into a division dubbed General Teleradio. With the tire manufacturer's acquisition of the RKO film studio in 1955, its media businesses were brought together under the rubric of RKO Teleradio Pictures. In 1959, following the breakup of the movie studio, the media division was given the name it would operate under for the next three decades, RKO General. In addition to its broadcasting activities, RKO General was also the holding company for many of General Tire's (and, after its parent company's reorganization, GenCorp's) other noncore businesses, including soft-drink bottling, hotel enterprises, and, for seventeen years, the original Frontier Airlines.

The RKO General radio lineup included some of the highest rated, most influential popular music stations in North America. In May 1965, KHJ (AM) in Los Angeles introduced the Boss Radio variation of the top 40 format. The restrictive programming style was soon adopted by many of RKO's other stations and imitated by non-RKO broadcasters around the country. RKO's FM station in New York pioneered numerous formats under a variety of call letters, including WOR and WXLO ("99X"); in 1983, as WRKS ("98.7 Kiss FM"), it became one of the first major stations to regularly program rap music. In 1979, RKO General created the RKO Radio Network, reportedly the first broadcasting web linked via satellite.

The company's television stations, for the most part non–network affiliated, were known for showing classic films (both RKO productions and many others) under the banner of ''Million Dollar Movie'', launched by New York's WOR-TV in 1954. In June 1962, RKO General and Zenith Electronics initiated what became the first extended venture into subscription television service: through early 1969, Hartford, Connecticut's WHCT-TV aired movies, sports, classical and pop music concerts, and other live performances without commercials, generating income from descrambler installation and weekly rental fees as well as individual program charges. However, RKO General's most notable legacy is what may be the longest licensing dispute in television history. It began in 1965, when General Tire was accused of obliging vendors to buy advertising with one of its stations if they wanted to keep their contracts. More than two decades' worth of legal actions ensued, eventually forcing GenCorp (the parent company since 1983 of both General Tire and RKO General) to sell off its broadcast holdings under FCC pressure. RKO General exited the media business permanently in 1991.

Later incarnations

company name	RKO Pictures LLC
company logo
company type	Limited liability company (LLC)
foundation	1989
location	L.A. Office: 1875 Century Park East, Suite 2140, Los Angeles, CA 90067N.Y. Office: 3 East 54th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10022
key people	Ted Hartley (Chairman and CEO)Dina Merrill (Vice Chairman)Vanessa Coifman (Executive Vice President of Production and Development)Kevin Cornish (Vice President of Development)Andrew Matthews (President)Jonathan Reiman (Director of Development)
industry	Motion pictures
divisions	Roseblood Movie Co.RKO Distribution
homepage	www.rko.com }}

Beginning with 1981's ''Carbon Copy'', RKO General became involved in the coproduction of a number of feature films and TV projects through a subsidiary created three years earlier, RKO Pictures Inc. In collaboration with Universal Studios, RKO put out five films over the next three years. Though the studio frequently worked with major names—including Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton in ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'', Jack Nicholson in ''The Border'', and Nastassja Kinski in ''Cat People'' (all 1982)—it met with little success. Starting with the Meryl Streep vehicle ''Plenty'' (1985), RKO took on more projects as sole studio backer. Films such as the erotic thriller ''Half Moon Street'' (1986) and the Vietnam War drama ''Hamburger Hill'' (1987) followed, but production ended as GenCorp underwent a massive reorganization following an attempted hostile takeover. With RKO General dismantling its broadcast business, RKO Pictures Inc., along with the original RKO studio's trademark, remake rights, and other remaining assets, was spun off and put up for sale. After a bid by RKO Pictures' own managers failed, it was acquired in late 1987 by Wesray Capital Corporation—under the control of former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon and Ray Chambers—and linked with their Six Flags amusement parks to form RKO/Six Flags Entertainment Inc.

In 1989, RKO Pictures, which had produced no films while under Wesray control, was spun off yet again. Actress and Post Cereals heiress Dina Merrill and her husband, producer Ted Hartley, acquired a majority interest and merged the company with their Pavilion Communications. After a brief period as RKO/Pavilion, the business was reorganized as RKO Pictures LLC. With the inaugural RKO production under Hartley and Merrill's ownership, ''False Identity'' (1990), the company also stepped into the distribution business. In 1992, it handled the well-regarded independent production ''Laws of Gravity'', directed by Nick Gomez. RKO's next significant release came in 1998 with ''Mighty Joe Young'', a remake of a 1949 RKO movie that was itself something of a ''King Kong'' redux. In the early 2000s, the company was involved as a coproducer on TV movies and modestly budgeted features at the rate of about one annually. In 2003, RKO coproduced a Broadway stage version of the 1936 Astaire–Rogers vehicle ''Swing Time'', under the title ''Never Gonna Dance''.

In 2003, as well, RKO Pictures entered into a legal battle with Wall Street Financial Associates (WSFA). Hartley and Merrill claimed that the owners of WSFA fraudulently induced them into signing an acquisition agreement by concealing their "cynical and rapacious" plans to purchase RKO with the intention only of dismantling it. WSFA sought a preliminary injunction prohibiting RKO's majority owners from selling their interests in the company to any third parties. The WSFA motion was denied in July 2003, freeing RKO to deal with another potential purchaser, InternetStudios.com. In 2004, that planned sale fell through when InternetStudios.com apparently folded. The company's minimal involvement in new film production continues to focus on its remake rights: ''Are We Done Yet?'', based on ''Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House'' (1948), was released in April 2007 to dismal reviews. Later in the year, RKO launched a horror division, Roseblood Movie Company. As of early 2010, Roseblood's mission had expanded, according to the RKO website, to encompass the "popular horror/thriller genre ... youth-oriented feature length motion pictures that are edgy, sensuous, scary and commercial." The most recent RKO film production is ''Beyond a Reasonable Doubt'' (2009), a remake of a 1956 RKO film directed by Fritz Lang. A stage version of ''Top Hat'' toured Great Britain in the second half of 2011.

Studio library

RKO Pictures LLC is the owner of all the trademarks and logos connected with RKO Radio Pictures Inc., as well as the rights concerning stories, screenplays (including 800 to 900 unproduced scripts), remakes, sequels, and prequels connected with the RKO library. The television, video, and theatrical distribution rights, however, are in other hands: The U.S. and Canadian TV—and, consequently, video—rights to the bulk of the RKO film library were sold at auction in 1971 after the holders, TransBeacon (a corporate descendant of C&C; Television), went bankrupt. The auctioned rights were split between United Artists and Marian B. Inc. (MBI). In 1984, MBI created a subsidiary, Marian Pictures Inc. (MBP), to which it transferred its share of the RKO rights. Two years later GenCorp's subsidiaries, RKO General and RKO Pictures, repurchased the rights then controlled by MBP. In the meantime, United Artists had been acquired by MGM. In 1986, MGM/UA's considerable library, including its RKO rights, was bought by Turner Broadcasting for its new Turner Entertainment division. During RKO Pictures' brief Wesray episode, Turner acquired many of the distribution rights that had returned to RKO via MBP, as well as both the theatrical rights and the TV rights originally held back from C&C; for the cities where RKO owned stations.

In October 1996, Turner Broadcasting was merged into Time Warner, which controls and distributes the bulk of the RKO library today, though RKO Pictures retains the copyright. As for RKO's primary release deals, the Disney pictures originally distributed by the studio are controlled by the Walt Disney Company. Rights to the Goldwyn features released by RKO, which had been held by the Samuel Goldwyn Company, are now controlled by MGM.

Ownership of the major European TV and video distribution rights to RKO's library is divided on a virtual country-by-country basis: In the UK, many of the RKO rights are currently held by Universal Studios. In 1981, RAI, the public broadcasting service, acquired the Italian rights to the RKO library, which it now shares with Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest. In France, the rights are held by Ariès. The German rights were acquired in 1969 by KirchGruppe on behalf of its KirchMedia division, which went bankrupt in 2002. EOS Entertainment's Beta Film purchased many of KirchMedia's rights in 2004, and the library is now distributed by Kineos, created in 2005 as a Beta Film–KirchMedia joint venture.

Logos

Most Radio Pictures Inc. and RKO Radio Pictures Inc. films produced between 1929 and 1957 have an opening logo displaying the studio's famous trademark, the spinning globe and radio tower, nicknamed the "Transmitter." It was inspired by a two-hundred-foot tower built in Colorado for a giant electrical amplifier, or Tesla coil, created by inventor Nikola Tesla. Orson Welles referred to the design as his "favorite among the old logos, not just because it was so often a reliable portent. ... It reminds us to listen." The studio's closing logo, a triangle enclosing a thunderbolt, was also a well-known trademark. Instead of the Transmitter, many Disney films released by the studio originally appeared with colorful versions of the RKO closing logo as part of the main title sequence. For decades, re-releases of these films had Disney/Buena Vista logos replacing the RKO insignia, but the originals have been restored in many recent DVD editions. The Hartley–Merrill RKO Pictures has created new versions of the Transmitter and the closing thunderbolt logo.

See also

List of RKO films

Notes

Many sources incorrectly give FBO's full name as "Film Booking Office of America"; the proper name is Film Booking Offices of America, which may be confirmed by examining its official logo. As an example of the many erroneous descriptions of RKO's early history that are routine even in reputable sources, take the summary history of the company's origins in ''Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939'', by Tino Balio (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1995 [1993]), p. 16. The following corrections must be made to a single paragraph:

FBO's full name was ''not'' "Film Booking Office" (see above).

RCA Photophone was ''not'' "amalgamated" with FBO and KAO under the Radio-Keith-Orpheum holding company.

The company did ''not'' "contain" anything close to "three hundred theaters" (see note b, below).

Until its acquisition of Pathé in 1931, RKO did ''not'' "contain ... four studios" in either sense of the term—production company (it "contained" one: FBO) or permanent production facility (it had, even by a generous count, three: FBO's Hollywood studio, the small New York studio FBO shared with Pathé, and the Encino backlot RKO established in 1929).

The reference in Jewell (1982) to "the 700 K-A-O Theatres in the US and Canada" (p. 10) is inaccurate. ''Time'' (1927) indicates that as of May 1927, Keith-Albee (legally the B. F. Keith Corp.) had 50 theaters and Orpheum had 47. Crafton (1997) claims KAO had "200 theaters" at the time of RKO's founding (p. 141), though he references no contemporary source. He does cite ''Film Daily'' in a description of RKO as controlling 250 theaters in 1930, following a "buying binge" (p. 256). Schatz (1998) describes an "RKO chain of 161 theaters" around the time David O. Selznick became production chief in October 1931 (p. 128). Schatz (1999) writes that as of 1940, RKO had "slightly more than 100 theaters" (p. 17). He explains that "the figures on studio-affiliated theaters vary considerably, owing to the number of houses in which the studios held only partial interest—as little as 5 percent in some cases" (p. 484, n. 24). A 1944 book, ''Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry'', includes the table "Theater holdings of the major companies are approximately as follows"—RKO is listed as holding 222 theaters. Lasky (1989) indicates that a 1953 ''Fortune'' article tallied the RKO circuit in 1948, at the time of Hughes's purchase, at "124 theaters, plus a share in about 75 others" (p. 205).

The standard history and reference guide to the studio's films, ''The RKO Story'', by Richard B. Jewell, with Vernon Harbin (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982) is used as the final arbiter of whether specific films made between 1929 and 1957 were RKO solo productions, coproductions, or completely independent productions. Official year of release is also per ''The RKO Story''.

Only one previous sound film had cost more than $1 million, and just barely: ''Noah's Ark'' (1929), from Warner Bros.

For the switch to the RKO Radio Pictures brand at the beginning of the 1932–33 exhibition season for U.S. print advertising, see, e.g., this original poster for ''The Most Dangerous Game'', which premiered September 9, 1932.

Among still-ascendant male stars, Grant was preceded by the more established Fredric March as a freelancer. For other freelance Hollywood performers of the mid-1930s, see Balio (1995), p. 155.

By August 1940, the lease was no longer exclusive—see "Screen News Here and in Hollywood," ''New York Times'', August 28, 1940. By mid-1949, Selznick had left the studio entirely—see two articles by Thomas F. Brady: "Republic to Make Film on Baseball," ''New York Times'', April 8, 1949; and "Hollywood Buys More Stories," ''New York Times'', May 1, 1949.

Schatz's (1999) brief description of ''Mr. and Mrs. Smith'' as a "critical and commercial failure" (p. 89) is evidently incorrect. According to historian Leonard Leff, "''Mr. and Mrs. Smith'' had a happy ending: good reviews and modest box office success." Ed Sikov agrees, calling it a "solid commercial hit". Donald Spoto's report on its release lends further support to this position.

''Citizen Kane'' lost $150,000–$160,000 on original release (the production cost was precisely $805,527.53); ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' lost $624,000 (production cost $1.125 million); and the unreleased ''It's All True'' cost the studio an estimated $1.2 million. Note that the studio operation itself was almost certainly a bigger money-loser than the cited figures suggest, with profits coming from the corporation's theatrical division.

Jewell (1982) states that it "attracted $3,355,000 in film rentals" (p. 181); Lasky (1989) refers to a ''Hollywood Reporter'' article on the film, published seven months after its premiere, predicting it "would do better than $3 million in the U.S. alone" (p. 185). It is not listed in Schatz's (1999) appendix of annual top box-office films of the 1940s (p. 466), based on a 1992 ''Variety'' reckoning, perhaps because of its unusual production history. Assuming Jewell's figure is accurate, and the Schatz/''Variety'' list is otherwise accurate and complete, ''Hitler's Children'' was the ninth biggest earner of 1943, a very impressive feat for a movie with a B budget and star (Tim Holt).

Many online sources give RKO General's year of inception as 1958, without evidence; O'Neill's 1959 dating is supported by the fact that there is no mention of RKO General in either the ''New York Times'' or the ''Los Angeles Times'' before February 1960.

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External links

;RKO Radio Pictures history

The Early Sound Films of Radio Pictures comprehensive listing of RKO (and FBO sound) features through 1935, with stars and release dates—see also The Early Sound Films of Pathé for the RKO-Pathé films of 1931–32; both part of ''Vitaphone Video Early Talkies'' website

RKO Theater Chain list of classic movie houses belonging to RKO chain; part of ''Cinema Treasures'' website

;RKO Pictures LLC

RKO Pictures the Hartley–Merrill company's website

Ted Hartley personal website of RKO Pictures LLC's chairman and CEO

"Newman Helms Doc" article by Michael Fleming on planned Hartley documentary, Variety.com, September 11, 2003

;RKO library and logos

C&C; RKO 16 mm Prints extensive discussion of RKO preservation and rights issues, by David Chierichetti; part of ''eFilmCenter'' website

The RKO Logo essay by Rick Mitchell; part of ''Hollywood: Lost and Found'' website

RKO Pictures Logos detailed descriptions by Nicholas Aczel and Sean Beard

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:History of film Category:Film production companies of the United States Category:Howard Hughes Category:Companies established in 1928 RKO General

be-x-old:RKO Radio Pictures ca:RKO Pictures de:RKO Pictures es:RKO Pictures fa:آر. ک. ئو fr:RKO Pictures ko:RKO 라디오 픽처스 it:RKO Pictures he:RKO hu:RKO Pictures ms:RKO Pictures nl:RKO Pictures ja:RKO no:RKO Pictures pl:RKO Pictures pt:RKO Pictures fi:RKO Pictures sv:RKO Pictures zh:雷电华电影公司

Name	Randy Orton
Names	Randy Orton
Height
Weight
Birth date	April 01, 1980
Birth place	Knoxville, Tennessee
Resides	Saint Charles, Missouri
Billed	St. Louis, Missouri
Trainer	"Cowboy" Bob OrtonSouth Broadway Athletic ClubMid Missouri Wrestling AllianceOhio Valley Wrestling
Debut	March 18, 2000
Retired	}}

Randal Keith "Randy" Orton (born April 1, 1980) is an American professional wrestler and actor. He is signed to WWE wrestling on its SmackDown brand. Orton is a third-generation professional wrestler; his grandfather Bob Orton, Sr., father "Cowboy" Bob Orton, and uncle Barry O all competed in the professional wrestling industry.

Before being promoted to the main World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) roster, Orton trained in and wrestled for Mid-Missouri Wrestling Association-Southern Illinois Conference Wrestling for a month. He was then sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), where Orton held the OVW Hardcore Championship on two separate occasions.

After signing with WWF, Orton became a member of the stable Evolution, which quickly led to a WWE Intercontinental Championship reign, his first title with the company. Orton also acquired the moniker "The Legend Killer" during a storyline where he began disrespecting Hall of Famers and physically attacking veterans of the industry outside of appropriate restrictions. At age 24, Orton became the youngest person ever to hold the World Heavyweight Championship. With this win, Orton departed from Evolution and a feud with his former stablemates began. In 2006, Orton joined forces with Edge in a tag team known as Rated-RKO. Together, Orton and Edge held the World Tag Team Championship. After the team disbanded, during mid-2007, Orton gained two WWE Championship reigns in one night. Orton formed the group The Legacy with Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase in 2008, however, they would disband in 2010 with Orton returning to singles competition. Overall, Orton has won eleven total championships in WWE, including being a nine-time world champion, having won the World Heavyweight Championship three times and the WWE Championship six times. He is also the winner of the 2009 Royal Rumble match.

Early life

Orton was born on April 1, 1980, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Son to Elaine and "Cowboy" Bob Orton, he has two younger siblings—Becky and Nathan. Knowing from experience the hardships of life as a professional wrestler, Orton's parents tried to convince him to stay away from the business, and his father warned him that life in the ring meant a life on the road, away from family. Orton attended Hazelwood Central High School, where he was an amateur wrestler. After graduating from Hazelwood in 1998, Orton enlisted with the United States Marine Corps. At the base, he received a bad conduct discharge a year later after going AWOL on two separate occasions and disobeying an order from a commanding officer. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Private First Class Orton was tried and convicted under a special court-martial and was put into a military prison for thirty-eight days.

Professional wrestling career

Training

Orton made his wrestling debut in 2000 at the Mid-Missouri Wrestling Association-Southern Illinois Conference Wrestling (MMWA-SICW) in St. Louis, Missouri, an offshoot of the historic St. Louis Wrestling Club headed by Sam Muchnick. There, he was trained by both the promotion and his father, "Cowboy" Bob Orton. He wrestled for the promotion for one month, Orton also refereed a few matches with World Organized Wrestling, a promotion where his uncle Barry Orton worked.

In 2001, Orton signed a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and was sent to its developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) in Louisville, Kentucky, where he continued his training. During his time in OVW, Orton wrestled the likes of Rico Constantino and The Prototype and teamed with Bobby Eaton during a tag team title tournament. He won the OVW Hardcore Championship on two separate occasions by defeating Mr. Black on February 14, 2001, and Flash Flanagan on May 5, 2001.

World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment

Evolution and World Heavyweight Champion (2002–2005)

One of Orton's first official WWF appearances was March 16, 2002 at WrestleMania X8's Fan Axxess, where he was defeated by Tommy Dreamer. Orton's first televised WWF match was against Hardcore Holly on ''SmackDown!'' on April 25, 2002. Soon after, Orton became a fan favorite and was placed in a series of matches with Holly. In September 2002, Orton was drafted to the Raw brand, where he defeated Stevie Richards in his debut on the show. Within weeks of his debut on the Raw brand, Orton suffered a shoulder injury, leaving him sidelined for months. While recovering, Orton still appeared on ''Raw'' in his own ''Randy News Network'' segment, a weekly vignette featuring him talking about his condition. The show interrupted other segments of Raw programming, which caused Orton to slowly transition himself into a narcissistic and self-centered villain.

After his injury healed, Orton joined the Evolution stable, which consisted of Ric Flair, Triple H, and relative newcomer, Dave Batista. The group was pushed on ''Raw'' from 2003 to 2004, with the height of their dominance occurring after Armageddon in 2003 when all of the men's titles on Raw were held by the members of Evolution. In 2003, Orton spent much of his time helping Triple H overcome challenges for the World Heavyweight Championship. Orton joined Triple H in a six-man Elimination Chamber match for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam, involved primarily to secure Triple H's title defense, and was eliminated by Goldberg.

Afterwards, Orton proclaimed himself "The Legend Killer", a young upstart who was so talented that he touted himself as the future of professional wrestling. He embarked on numerous storyline feuds with "legendary" wrestlers and gained infamy for his blatant disrespect of many older, well-respected names in wrestling history. With the help of his stablemate and mentor Ric Flair, he defeated Shawn Michaels at Unforgiven in the first of many high profile matches billed as "Legend versus Legend Killer." Orton then spat in the face of Harley Race on the April 26, 2004, episode of ''Raw''.

During this time, Orton began using the move that would become his signature finisher, the RKO, a jumping cutter named after his initials. Orton soon defeated Rob Van Dam for the WWE Intercontinental Championship at Armageddon on December 14, 2003. With this win, Orton started the longest Intercontinental title reign in seven years, holding the title for seven months.

Orton continued to establish himself as a "Legend Killer" throughout 2004, challenging the semi-retired wrestler Mick Foley. Famed for his hardcore matches and ability to handle excruciating pain, Foley offered Orton a hardcore "Legend versus Legend Killer" match if Orton would put his Intercontinental Championship on the line. In a bloody match involving thumbtacks and barbed wire, Orton defeated Foley. Two months later at Bad Blood, he successfully retained the Intercontinental Championship against Shelton Benjamin.

In July, at Vengeance, Edge defeated Orton to win the Intercontinental Championship, ending Orton's seven month title reign. After losing the Intercontinental Championship, Orton became the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship after winning a 20 man battle royal on July 26. At SummerSlam, Orton defeated Chris Benoit for the championship. Orton became the youngest person ever to hold the title in WWE history at the age of 24. Benoit congratulated Orton after the match, shaking his hand for showing the ability to "be a man."

The following night, after Orton successfully defended the championship against Benoit in a rematch, Evolution threw Orton a mock celebration, only to reveal that they were not pleased with his new victory.

Rated RKO (2005–2007)

While Batista had Orton propped on his shoulders in elation, Triple H gave him a pleased thumbs up and then abruptly changed it to a thumbs-down, which was followed by Batista's dropping Orton to the mat. Ric Flair and Batista attacked Orton in the ring as Triple H revealed his jealousy for Orton's title. He ordered Orton to hand over the championship, but he refused, spitting in Triple H's face and hitting him with the title belt. Orton's break-up with Evolution began a new storyline for him as a crowd favorite when he continued to feud with his former stablemates. A month later, Orton lost his championship to Triple H at Unforgiven. Seeking revenge, Orton lashed out at Evolution members, catching them by surprise during a show by giving them a large cake as a make-up gift, which he came out of to beat and humiliate the group. At Taboo Tuesday, Orton defeated Ric Flair in a Steel Cage match. After this, Orton experienced another push, becoming General Manager of the Raw brand for a week following a match stipulation at Survivor Series where he picked up the win for his team by last pinning Triple H in a 4 on 4 Survivor Series match. He continued to feud with Triple H, using his authority to place his opponents at severe disadvantages during title defenses. Orton was granted another chance at the championship in January 2005, but lost a six-man championship Elimination Chamber match to Triple H at New Year's Revolution. On the January 10 episode of ''Raw'', Orton defeated Batista to earn a match against Triple H at the Royal Rumble for the World Heavyweight title. At the Royal Rumble, Triple H defeated Orton to retain the World title.

Orton began an on-screen relationship with Stacy Keibler and briefly feuded with Christian in February 2005. On the February 28 episode of ''Raw'', "Superstar" Billy Graham made an appearance, in which he advised Orton to "go where no wrestler [had] gone before". Orton then produced a copy of ''SmackDown!'' magazine, which featured The Undertaker on the cover. Heeding Graham's advice, Orton claimed that he would set himself apart from all other wrestlers by ending The Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleMania. Throughout March 2005, Orton taunted The Undertaker, claiming he was unafraid of him. On the March 21 episode of ''Raw'', Orton turned into a villain once more after he delivered an RKO to his unsuspecting on-screen girlfriend, Stacy Keibler, knocking her unconscious. During Orton's promos, he would immediately run for cover when signs of The Undertaker's appearance were near (lightning, darkness, or smoke). When legendary wrestler Jake Roberts advised Orton not to underestimate The Undertaker, Orton performed an RKO on Roberts as well. In the weeks leading up to WrestleMania, Orton became more defiant and unafraid of The Undertaker, taunting and assaulting him in the ring following distractions from his father, "Cowboy" Bob Orton. At WrestleMania 21, however, the heavily hyped match was unsuccessful for Orton, as he lost despite his father's interference.

The following night on ''Raw'', Orton faced Batista, who had become World Heavyweight Champion. Orton stated on-screen that his match with The Undertaker had aggravated a shoulder injury. While sidelined, Orton appeared on ''Raw'' and claimed that he was ineligible for the WWE Draft Lottery due to his injury. He was informed by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon that he was indeed a candidate for the draft, leaving a possibility of a return to ''SmackDown!''. Orton returned to WWE programming for the SmackDown! brand on June 16, announcing that he was the second pick in the 2005 draft lottery. He rekindled his feud with The Undertaker, defeating him at SummerSlam following a distraction from his father. Two months later, Orton and his father Bob Orton defeated The Undertaker in a Handicap Casket match. The following month, Orton was a participant in the annual elimination match of Team SmackDown against Team Raw at Survivor Series. In the match, Orton was the last remaining wrestler in the match, as he pinned Shawn Michaels to get the victory for Team SmackDown. At the event, The Undertaker, who had been absent since Orton had apparently killed him on an episode of ''SmackDown!'', returned by emerging from a flaming casket. The feud was finally settled with a Hell in a Cell match at Armageddon, where The Undertaker offered to retire if he lost. On December 16, The Undertaker entered the ring to deliver a promo while one of his druids appeared to be standing in the ring. The Undertaker sustained an RKO from Orton in a surprise attack. The druid revealed himself to be Orton's father, who gave Orton The Undertaker's urn, which, according to the storyline, allowed whomever held it to control The Undertaker. The Undertaker, however, beat both Ortons in a Hell in a Cell match, ending their nine-month-long feud.

Following Armageddon, Orton entered the 2006 Royal Rumble match as the thirtieth and final wrestler, but he was eliminated by Rey Mysterio. Mysterio won the match and a title shot, and Orton urged him to put the title shot at stake in a match at No Way Out. In the weeks preceding No Way Out, Orton made disparaging remarks about Eddie Guerrero, Mysterio's friend who had died a few months previously, in an attempt to gain villain heat. Many fans felt the comments were unwarranted and highly distasteful so soon after Guerrero's death in November 2005. Orton won at No Way Out, earning Mysterio's title shot for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 22. General Manager Theodore Long re-added Mysterio to the WrestleMania 22 title match, however, making it a Triple Threat match between Orton, Mysterio, and then-champion, Kurt Angle. On April 2, at WrestleMania 22, Orton was pinned by Mysterio, making Mysterio the World Heavyweight Champion and ending their on-screen rivalry.

On April 4, 2006, Orton was suspended for sixty days for "unprofessional conduct." In an interview, Orton stated, "my conduct was unbecoming of a champion, which is what I will be again when I return." To cover for the suspension, a faked injury was devised, where Kurt Angle broke Orton's ankle during a grudge match. In July, Orton said his suspension resulted from smoking marijuana backstage. Orton returned from his suspension in June to the Raw brand, where he entered a rivalry with Angle, culminating in matches at One Night Stand and Vengeance before engaging in a storyline feud with Hulk Hogan. Orton began cutting promos insulting the aging Hogan and flirted with Hogan's then-eighteen-year-old daughter Brooke. At SummerSlam, the two met in a "Legend vs. Legend Killer" match, which Hogan won. After the newly reformed D-Generation X (DX) (Triple H and Shawn Michaels) cost Edge the WWE Championship numerous times, Edge approached Orton and asked him to join forces to defeat the team. Orton, whose championship reign had been ended by Triple H in 2004, agreed, forming the tag team Rated-RKO. The two became the first to defeat DX since their reunion and quickly dominated the Raw brand's tag team division to become tag team champions. As part of the angle, Rated-RKO attacked Ric Flair with steel chairs to enrage DX on November 27. At New Year's Revolution, Rated-RKO faced DX in a title defense, but the match was declared a no-contest when Triple H suffered a legitimate injury during the match.

With Triple H out of action, Rated-RKO continued their on-screen rivalry with remaining DX member Shawn Michaels. Michaels teamed with John Cena to defeat Rated-RKO for the tag team championship on January 29. Orton and Edge suffered a series of losses to Cena and Michaels in the following months, building hatred towards one another. Edge and Orton also became rivals in their goals of achieving the WWE Championship. Neither Edge nor Orton won the Championship, and they lost their claims as number one contenders after a failed match with Cena at Backlash. Orton then continued his "Legend Killer" persona, attacking Shawn Michaels. Using frequent attacks to the head, including an elevated DDT and a running punt to the face, Orton defeated Michaels at Judgment Day. When the kayfabe wounded and concussed Michaels collapsed in the ring, the referee was forced to stop the match and award Orton the victory. Orton continued his attacks when he engaged himself in feuds with Rob Van Dam, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, and Sgt. Slaughter.

WWE Champion; The Legacy (2007–2011)

On the July 23 episode of ''Raw'', Orton was named as the number one contender at SummerSlam for John Cena's WWE Championship. Weeks before their scheduled bout at SummerSlam, Orton attacked Cena on three separate occasions by performing RKOs on him. At SummerSlam, Orton lost the title match to Cena, who pinned Orton after executing an FU. The following night on ''Raw'', Orton demanded a rematch for the title, but his request was declined by Raw General Manager William Regal. Orton then took his demands to Mr. McMahon, who also refused to give Orton a rematch unless he proved himself. That night, Orton interfered in Cena's match by assaulting Cena and kicking Cena's father, who was at ringside, in the head. Orton was granted his title rematch against Cena at Unforgiven and won by disqualification when Cena refused to stop punching Orton in the corner; however, Cena retained the WWE title because a title cannot change hands by disqualification. After the match, Cena's father, who was again at ringside, kicked Orton in the head. At No Mercy, Orton was awarded the WWE Championship by Mr. McMahon after Cena was stripped of the title due to an injury the previous week, which also ended the Orton-Cena storyline prematurely. Orton then lost the title to Triple H in the opening match of the show, making Orton's reign the fourth shortest in WWE history. Later in the night, Orton defeated Triple H in a Last Man Standing match to regain the title, thus becoming a two-time WWE Champion in one night.

Following No Mercy, Orton continued his feud with Shawn Michaels, who made his return on the October 8 episode of ''Raw'' and performed Sweet Chin Music on Orton. The two met in a title match at Cyber Sunday after a match was made in which the fans would get to vote on either Michaels, Jeff Hardy or Mr. Kennedy as the opponent. As a result, Michaels was voted to face Orton. In the match, Orton was disqualified when he performed a low blow on Michaels, but Orton retained the title. In a scheduled rematch, Orton successfully defended the title at Survivor Series against Michaels when he performed the RKO on Michaels for the win. The stipulation of the match was that if Michaels used Sweet Chin Music, the match would be stopped and Michaels would never get a chance at the WWE title, but if Orton got himself disqualified, he would lose the title.

After weeks of intensity between the two, Orton defeated Jeff Hardy to retain the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble. Following this, he re-engaged in his feud with John Cena, who had returned from injury and won the 2008 Royal Rumble match. Orton lost the match after getting himself intentionally disqualified, thus retaining the title. At WrestleMania, Orton retained the WWE Championship in a Triple Threat match involving Cena and Triple H. Orton won the match by pinning Cena after a Pedigree from Triple H. The following month, at Backlash, Orton lost the title to Triple H in a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match, which also included Cena and John "Bradshaw" Layfield. After failing to win the title back at Judgment Day, Orton faced Triple H in a Last Man Standing match at One Night Stand for the title. Orton lost the match and legitimately broke his collarbone. During this time, Orton dropped his Legend Killer gimmick and replaced it with his new gimmick known as The Viper and debuted his new entrance music, Voices. Just before he made his return, Orton re-injured himself in a motorcycle accident, and, to keep on-screen exposure, he made an unexpected return to ''Raw'' at the beginning of September, criticizing all of the champions on the brand. Heel tag team Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase took exception to this and tried to gain his respect. Unsuccessful until the pay-per-view event Unforgiven, the two of them, alongside new recruit Manu, assaulted World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk, costing him his title. He made his in-ring return on the November 3 episode of ''Raw'' losing to Punk by disqualification after Ted DiBiase interfered. In retaliation, Orton punted DiBiase in the head. The following week, they made it official by defeating Batista and Triple H, Orton's former stablemates, in a three-on-two handicap match, dubbing themselves The Legacy. On January 25, 2009, Orton won the 2009 Royal Rumble match by last eliminating Triple H. On the March 2 episode of ''Raw'', Orton challenged Triple H for the WWE title at WrestleMania XXV, where Orton lost the match. Orton, however, won the title at Backlash in a six-man tag team match with Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, facing off against Triple H, Batista, and Shane McMahon. At Extreme Rules, he dropped the title to Batista in a Steel Cage match. The following night on ''Raw'', Orton and Legacy attacked Batista and (kayfabe) broke his arm, forcing him to vacate the title. It was later revealed that Batista was suffering from a torn biceps and Legacy was given on-screen credit for his injury. On the June 15 episode of ''Raw'', Orton regained the title in a Fatal Four-Way match involving Triple H, John Cena and The Big Show. Orton later lost the title to John Cena in an "I Quit" match at Breaking Point, but defeated Cena to win back the championship in a Hell in a Cell match at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view in October. At Bragging Rights, Orton lost the title to Cena in a 60 minute Iron Man match.

On the January 11, 2010, episode of ''Raw'', Orton won a triple threat match, with the help of Rhodes and DiBiase, to challenge Sheamus at the Royal Rumble for the WWE Championship. At the Royal Rumble, however, Orton failed to win the championship when Rhodes interfered, causing a disqualification. After the match, Orton attacked Rhodes and DiBiase. On the February 15 episode of ''Raw'', Orton was again disqualified in a rematch after Rhodes and DiBiase interfered. Orton and DiBiase both competed in the WWE Championship Elimination Chamber match at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, and DiBiase eliminated Orton after hitting him with a pipe which Rhodes had passed to him. The next night on ''Raw'', in a six-man tag team match, Orton attacked Rhodes and DiBiase in retaliation. At WrestleMania XXVI, Orton defeated Rhodes and DiBiase in a triple threat match, turning him into a fan favorite in the process for the first time since 2005.

Following his departure from Legacy, Orton, now playing a babyface role, faced Jack Swagger for the World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Rules in April, however, he was unsuccessful in defeating Swagger. After being speared by Edge, resulting in Orton losing a number one contender's match for the WWE Championship, on the WWE Draft episode of ''Raw'', he faced Edge at the Over the Limit pay-per-view, but separated his right shoulder during the match, which concluded in a double countout. At Fatal 4-Way in June, Orton competed in a fatal four-way match for the WWE Championship against John Cena, Sheamus and Edge but came up short. On the July 19 episode of ''Raw'', he won a number one contender's match against Edge and Chris Jericho giving him a match against Sheamus at SummerSlam. At the event, Sheamus was disqualified for bringing a steel chair into the match giving Orton the victory, however, not the title. Immediately afterwards Orton took the steel chair and hit Sheamus with it and gave him an RKO. Orton defeated John Cena, Chris Jericho, Wade Barrett, Edge and Sheamus in a Six-Pack Challenge Elimination Match to become WWE Champion for the sixth time at Night of Champions.

After defending his title against Sheamus at Hell in a Cell, Orton feuded with Wade Barrett, who attempted to use John Cena to help capture Orton's championship. After successfully defending his title against Barrett at Bragging Rights and Survivor Series, Orton defeated Barrett again on the November 22 episode of ''Raw'', only to lose his title immediately afterwards to The Miz, who cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase. Orton failed to recapture the title after losing a Tables match to The Miz at the TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view and again in a singles match at the Royal Rumble in January 2011 after interference from the New Nexus starting a feud between Punk and Orton. The following month at the Elimination Chamber event Orton participated in the Raw Elimination Chamber match but was unsuccessful in winning. Over the ongoing weeks, Orton would punt all members of the New Nexus, Michael McGillicutty, David Otunga, and Mason Ryan, removing each, one by one, from active competition. At WrestleMania XXVII, Orton defeated CM Punk. On the April 11 episode of ''Raw'', McGillicutty, Otunga and Ryan returned and cost Orton a number one contender's match for the WWE Championship. Two weeks later, at the 2011 WWE Draft, Orton was drafted to SmackDown and beat Punk at Extreme Rules thus ending his feud with New Nexus.

World Heavyweight Champion and various feuds (2011–present)

On April 29 episode of ''SmackDown'', Orton made his debut his match in a tag team match with Christian against Alberto Del Rio and Brodus Clay. The following week, Orton received a title opportunity against World Heavyweight Champion, Christian. Orton was successful in defeating Christian to win his second World Heavyweight Championship. At Over the Limit and Capitol Punishment, Orton successfully defended his championship against Christian. In July at Money in the Bank, Orton lost the title to Christian after Christian spat in his face, which led Orton to lose control of his temper, kick Christian in the groin and get disqualified, in a match where the stipulation was if Orton got himself disqualified, or if the referee made a "bad call", Christian would automatically win the championship. A month later, at the SummerSlam pay-per-view event, Orton regained the title when he defeated Christian in a No Holds Barred match. Orton ended his feud with Christian when he retained the World Championship in a Steel Cage Match on the August 30 episode of ''SmackDown''.

Orton then entered a feud with Mark Henry after Henry became the number one contender to the World Heavyweight Championship and over the next few weeks, Henry would attack Orton, getting the advantage over him. At Night of Champions, Orton lost the World Heavyweight title Henry, and failed to regain it two weeks later at Hell in a Cell. On the October 14 edition of ''Smackdown'', Orton received another title shot against Henry after winning a 41 man battle royal, he was successful in winning the match by disqualification but failed to win the title after interference from rival Cody Rhodes. He then defeated Rhodes at Vengeance, and on the November 4 episode of ''Smackdown'' in a Street Fight.

Orton would re-ignite his feud with Wade Barrett after both superstars were named captain for a traditional 5 on 5 Survivor Series elimination match. On the November 11 episode of ''SmackDown'', Orton was defeated by Barrett in a singles match, however on the November 14 episode of ''Raw'', Orton won in a rematch by disqualification. His team was defeated at Survivor Series with Barrett and Cody Rhodes being the sole survivors. Barrett would then begin attack and distract Orton during matches, getting the advantage. On the December 9 edition of ''SmackDown'', Orton and Barrett both competed in a time to beat challenge. The winner got to choose if they wanted to use tables, ladders or chairs at TLC. Barrett pinned Ezekiel Jackson in 7:53, however Orton pinned Dolph Ziggler in 7:51 and chose a tables match after throwing Ziggler threw a table. At Tables, Ladders, & Chairs, Orton defeated Barrett hitting the RKO mid-air with Barrett landing through the table. Barrett and Orton would continue their feud on the December 23 episode of ''SmackDown'', where they engaged in a brawl that ended backstage with Barrett getting hit with a RKO onto a car. This led to a Falls Count Anywhere match on December 30 episode of ''Smackdown'', where Barrett pushed Orton down a set of stairs before exiting through the door. Orton suffered a herniated disc as a result, taking him off television for a number of weeks. On January 27, 2012 edition of ''SmackDown'', he returned to the ring and attacked Barrett. On the February 3 edition of ''SmackDown'', Orton defeated Barrett in a No Disqualification match to end the feud.

On the February 14 edition of ''Raw SuperShow'', Orton suffered a concussion after World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan smashed Orton over the head with the title belt. Due to the injury, Orton was taken out of his elimination chamber match at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view and was replaced by Santino Marella. In retaliation, Orton hit Kane with an RKO on the March 5 edition of ''Raw Supershow'', after the latter defeated R-Truth. On the following ''SmackDown'', Orton would hit Kane with another RKO before his match and they would later engage in a brawl as ''SmackDown'' went off air. At WrestleMania XXVIII, Orton was defeated by Kane in a singles match.

Other media

In 2004, Orton appeared on the late-night talk show ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', to promote the Taboo Tuesday pay-per-view. In March 2007, alongside Edge, John Cena, and Bobby Lashley, Orton appeared on the NBC game show ''Deal or No Deal''. In July 2009, Orton revealed he read for the lead role in ''The Marine 2'' (2009), the sequel to the 2006 film ''The Marine''. He was given the part, but after injuring his collarbone, the film's producers decided to go with Ted DiBiase. Orton has a supporting role in the film ''That's What I Am'', alongside Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. The film is a coming-of-age comedy written and directed by Michael Pavone. On March 28 2012 it was reported that Randy Orton would starring in "Marine:Homefront" On 3 April it was reported that Orton was dropped from starring Marine Homefront due to his past with the USMC.

Controversy

While on the Raw brand, Orton was accused of harassing fellow WWE employees Amy Weber and Rochelle Loewen; Loewen has called Orton "an animal". While she quashed a long-standing rumor that he defecated in her bag, she did claim that he vandalized her possessions and subjected her to verbal harassment because she did not know who he was upon meeting him.

On March 19, 2007, ''Sports Illustrated'' posted an article on its website as part of its continuing series investigating a steroid and HGH ring used by a number of professional athletes in several sports. That article mentioned several current and former WWE wrestlers, including Orton who was alleged to have obtained clomiphene citrate, anastrozole and the steroids stanozolol, nandrolone, oxandrolone, and testosterone. WWE has since made a statement on this situation, claiming that the allegations preceded the Talent Wellness program WWE launched in February 2006.

Personal life

In November 2005, Orton announced his engagement to his girlfriend Samantha Speno. They married on September 21, 2007. In December 2007, Orton announced that he and his wife were expecting their first child, a daughter. Orton and his wife welcomed Alanna Marie Orton on July 12, 2008.

He had a tattoo on his left arm that read "USMC" for United States Marine Corps but covered it up after receiving a bad conduct discharge when he went AWOL from the service. He was sent home after serving thirty-eight days in military prison at Camp Pendleton in California.

Orton suffers from hypermobile shoulders. After being medically cleared to wrestle and after he broke his collarbone in a Last Man Standing match at One Night Stand against Triple H, Orton re-injured his collarbone in a motorcycle accident.

In wrestling

Finishing moves

*''O-Zone'' (Overdrive) – 2002–2003

''RKO'' (Jumping cutter, sometimes from the top rope or used as a counter to a midair opponent) – 2003–present

Running punt kick to an opponent's head - 2007-present (Used mainly to cause a storyline concussion)

Signature moves

Bodyscissors

Dropkick

European uppercut

Falling clothesline

Full nelson slam

Gutwrench elevated neckbreaker

Inverted headlock backbreaker

Knee drop

Lou thesz press followed by mounted punches

Olympic slam

''Orton Stomp'' (Multiple stomps while circling a fallen opponent)

Rope-hung DDT

Side belly-to-belly suplex

Snap scoop powerslam

*Spinebuster sometimes into a sit out position

Superplex - adopted off his father, "Cowboy" Bob Orton

Wrenching chinlock

Managers

*Ric Flair

*"Cowboy" Bob Orton

*Lita

*Stacy Keibler

Tag-teams and Stables

* Evolution

* Rated RKO

* The Legacy

Nicknames

"The Legend Killer"

"The Viper"

"WWE's/The Apex Predator"

Entrance themes

* "Line in the Sand" by Motörhead (2003–2004) (Used while a member of Evolution)

"Burn in My Light" by Mercy Drive (August 30, 2004–May 5, 2008)

*"This Fire Burns" by Killswitch Engage (March 3, 2006)

"Voices" by Rev Theory (May 12, 2008–present)

Championships and accomplishments

Ohio Valley Wrestling

OVW Hardcore Championship (2 times)

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

*PWI Feud of the Year (2009) vs. Triple H

PWI Most Hated Wrestler of the Year (2007, 2009)

PWI Most Improved Wrestler of the Year (2004)

PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (2010)

PWI Rookie of the Year (2001)

PWI ranked him #1 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2008

PWI ranked him #2 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2011

PWI Wrestler of the Year (2009, 2010)

World Wrestling Entertainment

World Heavyweight Championship (3 times)

World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Edge

WWE Championship (6 times)

WWE Intercontinental Championship (1 time)

*Royal Rumble (2009)

*Seventeenth Triple Crown Champion

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

*Most Improved (2004)

Notes

References

External links

WWE profile

Online World of Wrestling profile

Slam! bio and story archive

Twitter

Category:1980 births Category:American professional wrestlers Category:Fictional portrayals of schizophrenia Category:Living people Category:American Christians Category:People from Knoxville, Tennessee Category:People from St. Louis, Missouri Category:People from Jefferson County, Missouri Category:United States Marines

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Name	Michael Cole
Names	(Sir) Michael Cole
Height
Weight
Birth date	December 08, 1968
Birth place	Syracuse, New York
Resides	McAllen, Texas
Billed	Amenia, New York
Debut	1996
Retired	}}

Michael Sean Coulthard (born December 8, 1968), better known by his ring name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator, currently signed to WWE on both its Raw and SmackDown brands. Coulthard is a former news journalist.

Life and career

Journalism

Coulthard began his career in the media as a journalist, working for CBS Radio. His first high-profile assignment was to cover the failed 1988 US presidential campaign of Democratic Party nominee Michael Dukakis. In 1992, he reported on the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. Coulthard covered the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993. The following year, he spent nine months covering the Yugoslavian civil war. In 1995 he was also selected to cover the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. He returned to the presidential campaign trail in 1996 to cover the failed campaigns of Steve Forbes and Sen. Bob Dole.

World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment (1997–present)

Backstage interviewer and Raw (1997–1999)

Cole came to the World Wrestling Federation in mid-1997 and started using the stage name "Michael Cole." He became the host of ''LiveWire'' show alongside Jim Cornette. Coulthard debuted at SummerSlam, and replaced Todd Pettengill as a backstage interviewer, who left the WWF after the event. In late 1997, Cole became one of the three announcers for the first hour of ''Monday Night Raw'', alongside Jim Ross and Kevin Kelly. Eventually Cole was permanently replaced by Jerry Lawler later in the year. In 1999, Cole became the regular play-by-play announcer for ''Monday Night Raw'' subbing for Jim Ross when Ross was devastated by Bell's palsy.

SmackDown! (1999–2008)

When the promotion's new ''SmackDown!'' television program debuted later that year, Cole was chosen to be the show's play-by-play announcer. Originally his broadcast partner was Jerry "The King" Lawler, but when Lawler briefly left the WWF, he was replaced by Cole's ''Heat'' broadcast partner Tazz shortly before the WWF vs. WCW/ECW invasion storyline. Cole also had a stint doing commentary on ''SmackDown!'''s former sister show ''WWE Velocity''.

As an announcer, Cole was rarely involved in storylines; however, he has had minor roles in storylines involving Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, Heidenreich, Stephanie McMahon, Vito, and D-Generation X (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Chyna, and Rick Rude). His 2004 angle with Heidenreich became infamous due to an implied scene where Heidenreich "Heidenraped" him in the arena restroom. In a 2008 interview, Heidenreich explained that the Cole rape angle was McMahon's idea, and that ''Pulp Fiction'' came to mind when Stephanie McMahon approached him with the idea. He also appeared in the ''Taxi Driver'' parody trailer in promotion of WrestleMania 21.

Cole called play-by-play at the 2006 Royal Rumble match because Ross, who had commentated the last three Royal Rumble matches with Tazz, had been "fired" in the storylines and replaced by former ECW play-by-play man Joey Styles, reuniting the original SmackDown! team of Cole and Lawler.

On February 3, 2006, it was announced that he and Tazz were starting a radio show on Howard Stern's "Howard 101" radio station on Sirius, airing Thursday through Sunday at 8 pm, but the show was a trial run that only lasted a couple of weeks.

On April 26, 2006, WWE announced that Cole would become the Managing Editor of WWE.com. Shortly after, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon told shareholders in a meeting held on September 14 that he believes that the website "sucks". In response, Cole replied on WWE.com about updated content for the website: a broadband network with original web-only shows have been scheduled for October, with a new mobile offering, a re-vamped subscription site and more exclusive videos and photos. Cole went on to say, "So in summary, the web site does suck, compared to where we are going to take it, but it won’t suck for long. Wish I could say the same for the boss."

On the June 9 edition of ''SmackDown!'', Cole's broadcast partner Tazz left from SmackDown to ECW, leaving Cole at that moment without a broadcast partner. At ECW One Night Stand 2006, John "Bradshaw" Layfield announced he would replace Tazz as color commentator. This proved true five days later when he appeared on that week's edition of ''SmackDown!'' as Cole's new broadcast partner.

After JBL left the broadcast booth and returned to wrestling action on ''Raw'', Jonathan Coachman became Cole's new partner on January 4, 2008. Coachman was then replaced by Mick Foley beginning at Backlash on April 27, 2008.

Raw announcing exclusively (2008–2010)

As a part of the 2008 WWE Draft, Cole was drafted to the Raw brand as Jim Ross was drafted to the SmackDown brand. This effectively ended Cole's near 10 year run as play-by-play commentator on ''Smackdown'' in which he called every episode except for two. (The two episodes were the pilot and the 9/11 Tribute show, both of which were called by Ross.) On the July 7, 2008 edition of ''Raw'', Cole was attacked by Kane. He repeatedly asked Cole "Is he alive or dead?" before Cole was saved by Jerry Lawler. Cole made his in-ring debut as Lawler's partner against the tag team of Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase; a match for the World Tag Team Championship. Cole and Lawler lost after Cole inadvertently tagged himself in, and was quickly pinned by Rhodes after a lariat. On the December 14, 2009 episode of ''Raw'', which was the 2009 Slammy Awards, Cole won ''The "Oh My" Moment of the Year'' award for vomiting on Chris Jericho at ''SmackDown's 10th Anniversary'' show on October 2.

Heel Turn and NXT (2010)

Cole is the color commentator for ''WWE NXT'' when the show debuted on February 23, 2010. Cole started to show early signs of a heel turn when he began to belittle certain rookies on the show, mainly Daniel Bryan. Cole began showing a liking to The Miz, who was Bryan's pro on that season, and who was becoming a significant heel on Raw. On the May 18 episode of ''WWE NXT'', Bryan attacked Cole as a result of Cole's comments to him over the preceding weeks. The following week, Cole called Bryan out and demanded an apology from him, or else he would sue him for the assault. Bryan insulted Cole instead. Cole retaliated by calling Bryan a "loser" and slapping him, which caused Bryan to be restrained by security as Cole left the ring.

After Cole's feud ended with Bryan in the second season of ''NXT'', Cole began to show more support for The Miz and his rookie for that season, Alex Riley. As with Bryan in the first season of ''NXT'', Cole picked on season two rookie Kaval for being another "internet darling".

On the third season on ''NXT'', Cole criticized the whole competition after a challenge which would require him to ring a gong that was next to him. He walked off commentary, ostensibly "quitting" the show. Cole returned halfway through the next week's edition of ''WWE NXT'', rejoining Josh Mathews and CM Punk, who filled in for Cole. Cole stated that "''NXT'' without Michael Cole is simply bad, and that he was giving the show "journalistic integrity". Just as in the first two seasons of ''NXT'', Cole picked on a rookie, A.J., who he would also call an "internet darling".

On the fourth season of ''WWE NXT'', Cole was replaced by Todd Grisham on commentary. On the December 28 episode of ''WWE NXT'', Cole returned to the show to help Brodus Clay in a talent show competition.

Feud with Jerry Lawler (2010–2011)

On the June 21, 2010, episode of ''Raw'', Cole became the official spokesman for the new (anonymous) General Manager of ''Raw'' (as the GM issues his orders through e-mails addressed to Cole) coming up with a new catchphrase of "and I quote...." to begin each e-mail reading.

On the October 1 edition of ''SmackDown'', Cole returned to the show to join Matt Striker and Todd Grisham on commentary. On that same episode, Cole told Striker and Grisham that the reason he was on the show was that he was the new "Voice of the WWE" and that he should be on all WWE shows.

Over the next few months, Cole showed more signs of a heel turn when he started to pick on certain superstars on ''Raw'' and ''SmackDown''. As Cole's heel character developed, Jerry Lawler showed displeasure in commentating with him. Cole dubbed his "fans" as Cole Miners, a play on the term coal mining. Even CM Punk, who had buddied up with Cole during the announcing of NXT Season 3, said that his initials stood for Cole Miner. On the November 15 episode of ''Raw'', Jim Ross returned to the WWE to call a match alongside Lawler and Cole, to Cole's obvious displeasure. After the match finished, JR beat Cole with his hat before he left.

On the November 29 episode of ''Raw'', Cole interfered in a Tables, Ladders & Chairs match for the WWE Championship between Lawler and The Miz, costing Lawler the match by helping Miz retain his title. A week later, Cole apologized, only to take it back and demand one from Lawler. After Lawler threatened to attack Cole, the anonymous ''Raw'' General Manager issued a "cease and desist" order, which barred any physicality between them and that if either of them violated the order, that individual would have their contract terminated immediately. Cole continued to argue with Lawler on commentary, telling him he was "stealing the spotlight" and to "stop putting his nose in other people's business". After Lawler unsuccessfully challenged for the WWE Championship again at WWE Elimination Chamber, Cole interviewed him about his match on the following ''Raw''. When Cole mentioned Lawler's recently deceased mother, Lawler stole the microphone from Cole and challenged him to a match at WrestleMania XXVII. Cole responded by throwing water into Lawler's face and then running backstage.

A week later, Cole accepted Lawler's challenge to a match at WrestleMania, only if he could have his own personal trainer at ringside with him and if he could choose the special guest referee for the match. Cole then revealed his trainer to be Jack Swagger. On the March 7, 2011 episode of ''Raw'', Cole announced that he had chosen John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) as the referee for the match, but before he could sign the contract, Stone Cold Steve Austin interrupted and delivered a Stone Cold Stunner to JBL, and then signed the contract himself, making him the referee for the match. From the March 14 episode of ''Raw'', Cole began announcing both ''Raw'' and ''SmackDown'' inside a glass booth which he called the Cole Mine. Later that night, Cole invited Brian Christopher, Lawler's son, to the ring to reveal the truth about Lawler. Christopher confronted his father and told him he was ashamed to use the name "Lawler" and accused him of being absent from most of his life. Jim Ross then interrupted and confronted Cole and called him a "rat bastard". Jack Swagger attacked Ross and put him an Ankle Lock. Cole also followed suit.During following weeks he criticized the WWE Divas saying they should not be in the WWE.

At WrestleMania, Lawler won the match by submission, using the ankle lock submission hold that Cole and Swagger had used on him during the last few weeks leading into the event. While celebrating his victory with Stone Cold, the anonymous Raw General Manager reversed the decision, due to Stone Cold physically getting involved in the match by pushing Cole, thus, making Cole the winner by disqualification. A month later at Extreme Rules, Cole teamed with Swagger to defeat Jim Ross and Lawler in a Country Whipping match. Lawler challenged Cole to one last match at Over The Limit. Cole initially declined, but Swagger was provoked into agreeing to the match on Cole's behalf. A week later, Cole announced that the match would be a "Kiss My Foot" match. During the signing, Cole and Swagger's alliance ended when Cole insulted Swagger, causing him to walk out on Cole, who then tried to beg Lawler for forgiveness. At the pay-per-view, Lawler defeated Cole. After the match, Eve Torres and Jim Ross would come out and get their retribution on Cole. Eve Torres delivered her signature moonsault to Michael and Jim Ross covered Michael's face in barbecue to humiliate Michael Cole. Bret "The Hitman" Hart would then return and put Cole in his signature submission move, the Sharpshooter, to help Lawler make Cole kiss his foot.

Return to commentating (2011)

On the May 23 edition of ''Raw'', the night after Over The Limit, Cole said he regretted his behavior over the past few months and offered Lawler a full apology, which Lawler accepted, and soon enough, Cole returned to being a commentator. Despite this, he continues his heel run as he still favors villains like The Miz, Jack Swagger and Alberto Del Rio and questions some of the actions by fan favorites to regain control in a match. He also started liking the divas matches, saying they are his favourite but continues to show his dislike towards Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres.

On the May 30 episode of ''Raw'', Cole would insult Alex Riley during an in-ring interview, which caused Riley to attack Cole. Miz would save Cole by attacking Riley from behind, but was also blindsided by Riley. A week later, after John Cena and Riley defeated Miz and R-Truth, Cole would announce that the Anonymous ''Raw'' General Manager had reversed the ruling, due to Steve Austin physically assaulting The Miz during the match, thus, making Miz and Truth the winners instead (because Cena and Riley are both disqualified). Austin would bring Cole into the ring hit his signature ''Stone Cold Stunner'' on him, followed by Cena hitting an Attitude Adjustment finishing move on him. Austin would then pour beer all over Cole while celebrating with Cena and Riley.

On the June 20 ''Power to the People'' episode of ''Raw'', Cole was voted as the opponent for Vickie Guerrero in a dance-off, hosted by Matt Striker. Cole would imitate the signature worm of Scotty 2 Hotty and the signature ''Spin-a-Roonie'' of Booker T. Cole would win the dance-off for receiving the most amount of boos (originally to be most amount of cheers, Striker changed it to boos when both Vickie and Cole were just booed). On the July 25 episode of ''Raw'', after Triple H announced the return of Jim Ross on commentary, Cole became angry with the decision, which led to Triple H giving Cole the choice to quit or stay. After Cole agreed to stay, Triple H announced Cole would have a match and would have the rest of the night off commentary. Cole (forced to dress and mimic Triple H) was defeated by Zack Ryder in a squash match. Later that same week on ''SmackDown'', Cole stated that he was not quitting and he was going to continue to commentate on ''Raw'' alongside Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.

Personal life

Coulthard graduated from Webutuck High School in 1984 and attended the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in Syracuse University. Coulthard says that his favourite country to visit is South Africa. Coulthard loves twitter.

Coulthard is married to a woman named Yolanda and the couple have two sons, named Calvin and Mark. Coulthard's oldest son, Calvin, also works for WWE in the television production department.

Beside doing commentary in the WWE video games, he will be featured as a playable superstar in ''WWE '12'' in his WrestleMania 27 gear. He was previously only available for in-game use via cheat devices such as Xploder.

In wrestling

Nicknames

*"The (self-proclaimed) Legend Killer"

*"The (self-proclaimed) Mr. WrestleMania"

"The (self-proclaimed) Voice of the WWE"

Awards and Accomplishments

World Wrestling Entertainment/ WWE

Slammy Award for the "Oh My" Moment of the Year (2009)

*Slammy Award for the "And I Quote..." Line of the Year (2010)

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Worst Television Announcer (2001, 2009, 2010)

References

External links

WWE profile

Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:Fictional knights Category:People from Syracuse, New York Category:People from the Catskills Category:People from the McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr, Texas, area Category:Professional wrestling announcers Category:American reporters and correspondents Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:Syracuse University alumni

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