Carl Laemmle
- "probably only man in the industry had the resources" to break the Trust
- German-born Jew - Chicago clothing-store manager and film distributor
- "more skillful and ambitious than most, he built the largest distributing concern in the U.S. within 3 years"
- owned 6 exchanges - withdrew from Trust 1909
- bought films from International Projecting and Producing Co. - won tariff reduction
- built IMP - Independent Moving Picture Co. - 1 of Big 3 with P. Powers, Kessel & Baumann
- produced own films with Luniere stock
- founded 1910 Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Co. - "sole outlet" for indep. films - offered 27 films per week
- associate Robert Cochrane anti-Trust $2 royalty ad campaign
- founded 1912 Universal Film Manufacturing Co. with 9 others vs. H. Aitken - but quarrel with Kessel & Baumann
- hired Biograph Girl Florence Lawrence 1909 and gave her star billing
- nickel theater owners broke the Trust, and "Laemmle was their pathfinder and prototype. More than any other man he had established the independents and kept alive the neighborhood theaters in the ghettos."
Other founders of the studio system:
- Big Three by 1925: A. Zukor, Wm. Loew, Thomas Tally
- Mid Five by 1925: Fox, Universal, Producers Distributing, Warners, Film Booking Office
- Thomas Ince, Kuhn Loeb, D. W. Griffith at United Artists, Cecil B. de Mille
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