The History of MCA

1912: Carl Laemmle joins with a half-dozen small motion picture companies to create Universal Pictures. Three years later, he moves the studios to a 230-acre former chicken ranch in North Hollywood, where he builds bleachers and charges visitors 25 cents each to watch silent films being made.

1924: Julius Caesar Stein founds Music Corp. of America in Chicago. with an initial stake of $1,000. Stein, an ophthalmologist and musician, abandons his medical career to book dance bands and singers into speak-easies and nightclubs on Chicago’s South Side. By the mid-1930s, MCA represents more than half of the major bands in the country, including those led by Xavier Cugat, Gene Krupa, Tommy Dorsey and Kay Kyser.

1936: Stein hires Lew R. Wasserman, a Cleveland theater usher and former publicity director for a local nightclub. Wasserman begins his lengthy career at MCA as national advertising and publicity director, earning $60 a week. Within two years, he is promoted to vice president and becomes Stein’s protege.

1940s: MCA, now a powerful talent agency with offices in New York and Hollywood, begins producing network radio shows.

1952: The Screen Actors Guild, with the support of its president, actor and MCA client Ronald Reagan, grants MCA and its Revue Productions division a waiver from the union rule prohibiting talent agencies from producing television shows.

1959: MCA pays $11.5 million for the 420-acre Universal Studios complex in the Cahuenga Pass overlooking the San Fernando Valley.

1962: MCA purchases Universal Pictures and its parent company, Decca Records.

1964: MCA begins charging tourists for tram rides through the studios and back lots, marking the start of the lucrative Universal Studios tour business.

1968: MCA buys Spencer Gifts, a mail-order gift company based in Atlantic City, N.J.

1960s and 1970s: Universal becomes the leading supplier of television programming, known especially for one-hour action and drama series.

1975: Universal releases Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” which earns $220 million in film rentals and millions more from videocassettes. Seven years later it releases Spielberg’s “E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial,” which earns $340 million in film rentals.

1986: MCA acquires a 50% stake in Cineplex Odeon Corp., a Canadian movie theater chain with a major U.S. presence, for $158 million in MCA stock. MCA also pays about $387 million for WOR-TV in New York.

1987: MCA breaks ground for a 450-acre studio and tour complex in Orlando, Fla. The $500-million attraction opens in June, 1990, but is plagued by start-up problems in some key attractions.

1990: MCA acquires Geffen Records for MCA preferred stock valued at $545 million.

1990: MCA Inc. agrees to be purchased by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in a deal valued at $6.59 billion, or about $71 a share.