"RKO" redirects here. For the filmography, see List of RKO Pictures films. For other uses, see RKO (disambiguation).
RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
Opening logo
Company type
Subsidiary
Industry
Motion pictures
Predecessors
Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation
Film Booking Offices of America
Founded
January 25, 1929; 95 years ago (1929-01-25) (as RKO Productions Inc.)
Founder
David Sarnoff
Defunct
1959; 65 years ago (1959)
Headquarters
1270 Avenue of the Americas,
New York City, New York
Parent
Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp. (1929–50)
RKO Pictures Corp. (1950–55)
RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc. (1955–59)
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA executive David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an initialism of Radio-Keith-Orpheum). Two years later, another Kennedy concern, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By the mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum.
RKO has long been renowned 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, with credits including touchstones of the screwball comedy genre with which RKO was identified. 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 producer/director/star Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. RKO was also responsible for notable coproductions such as It's a Wonderful Life and Notorious, and it distributed many celebrated films by animation pioneer Walt Disney and leading independent producer Samuel Goldwyn. Though it often could not compete financially for top star and director contracts, RKO's below-the-line personnel were among the finest, including composer Max Steiner, cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, and designer Van Nest Polglase.
Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1948. After years of disarray and decline under his control, the studio was acquired by the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. It soon broke new business ground as the first major studio to sell the bulk of its film library's TV rights. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was effectively dissolved two years later. In 1978, broadcaster RKO General, the corporate heir, launched a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc., which revived the theatrical brand with its first releases three years later. In 1989, this business, with its remaining assets, including the studio trademarks and the remake rights to many classic RKO films, was sold to new owners, who established the small independent company RKO Pictures LLC. The original studio's film library is now largely controlled by Warner Bros. Discovery.
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for four years. In June 2007, the company formed a joint venture with RKOPictures to remake four films from the latter's library, namely Five Came Back...
the neighboring Desilu Productions television studio (once the lot of RKOPictures) from Lucille Ball in 1967. Using some of Desilu's established shows...
Fidelity Pictures in 1948, playing Belle Starr. The film was intended to be released by Republic Pictures, but the producer sold the film to RKO, who released...
first appearance was in the novelization of the 1933 film King Kong from RKOPictures, with the film premiering a little over two months later. A sequel quickly...
1940s and early 1950s, appearing in forty-six B westerns released by RKOPictures. In a career spanning more than four decades, Holt is best remembered...
1945's Dillinger, made for the King Brothers and Monogram Pictures, which borrowed him from RKO. Advertised as a tale "written in bullets, blood, and blondes"...
co-productions with Universal Pictures). DreamWorks became the first new major Hollywood motion picture studio since RKOPictures was founded in 1928, that...
cut off from family money." At the age of 23, Aldrich began work at RKOPictures as a production clerk, an entry-level position, after declining an offer...
at the age of 17, signed on a film contract at MGM and subsequently with RKO, where she found her greatest success and is perhaps best remembered for...
Artists and RKO Radio Pictures, and are now distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Some films produced by Walt Disney Pictures are also released...
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the major studios, including Warner Bros. Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures, as well as streaming services such as Netflix...
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Navy fighter pilot, investment banker, actor, film producer, and CEO of RKOPictures. He was married to heiress, actress and philanthropist Dina Merrill until...
Fontaine's career. She began her film career in 1935, signing a contract with RKOPictures. Fontaine received her first major role in The Man Who Found Himself...
prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKOPictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure...
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