This article is about the film production company. For the wrestler, see Randy Orton.

RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures is an American film production company, one of the so-called Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. It was formed in October 1928 as a combination of the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chains, Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Office of America (FBO) studio, and Photophone, the new sound-on-film division of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). First under the majority ownership of RCA, in later years it was taken over by maverick industrialist Howard Hughes and finally by the General Tire and Rubber Company. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was defunct as of 1960. In 1989 the name was revived for one of RKO's corporate descendants.

The birth of RKO

Shut out of the sound-film conversion frenzy driven by the success of Warner Bros.' October 1927 release The Jazz Singer, RCA bought its way into the motion picture business to gain an outlet for the variable-area optical sound-on-film system, Photophone, recently developed by General Electric, RCA's parent company. All of the major studios and their theater divisions had signed exclusive contracts to use the Westrex variable-density optical sound-on-film system, developed by AT&T's Western Electric division. Hoping to join in the boom in sound movies, David Sarnoff, general manager of RCA, approached Joseph Kennedy in late 1927 about using the Photophone system for all FBO pictures. Negotiations resulted in General Electric acquiring a substantial interest in FBO, followed by Sarnoff and Kennedy arranging for a takeover of the large Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit of theaters, then used for live vaudeville performances. Under the plan, largely conceived by Sarnoff, Kennedy acquired KAO on May 10, 1928, and with it the Pathé (U.S.)–De Mille filmmaking operations, which had united under KAO control the previous year. Meanwhile, Sarnoff had created RCA Photophone, Inc. In October, a merger was effected primarily through a series of stock transfers and the creation of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum holding company was announced, with Sarnoff as chairman of the board. Kennedy, who was briefly president of the new operation before stepping aside, kept what was known as Pathé Exchange (Cecil B. De Mille having been bought out in August) separate from RKO and under his personal control.Goodwin, Doris Kearns, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 375–379; Jewell, Richard B., The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982), 9–10; Utterson, Andrew, Technology and Culture—The Film Reader (Oxford and New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2005), 63–65; "Cinemerger," Time, May 2, 1927. The prominence of the word "radio" in the corporate name "Radio-Keith-Orpheum" reflected RCA's 66% share in the concern. It was claimed that the broadcasting-tower logo of the production arm, "Radio Pictures," was suggested by Sarnoff himself.

Kennedy's primary role in the new company, of which he remained a major stockholder even after departing his executive position, was to drive up the share value. He and his associates did so successfully, pushing RKO's price higher even before film production had begun under the new name. Looking to get out of the film business a couple of years later, Kennedy arranged in late 1930 for RKO to purchase Pathé from him. On January 29, 1931, Pathé, with its Culver City studio and contract players, most notably Constance Bennett, was merged into RKO and Kennedy sold off the last of his stock in the company he had been instrumental in creating, as the country and RKO tumbled into depression.Goodwin, 422-423; Jewell, 32.

RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

Declaring that it would make only sound films, RKO began producing movies at the former FBO studios in early 1929, with William LeBaron in charge of production. By the early 1930s, RKO was producing forty pictures a year, releasing them under the names "Radio Pictures" and, after the 1931 merger, "RKO Pathé." LeBaron was succeeded in 1931 by David O. Selznick, who signed and promoted several young actors who would carry RKO through the decade, among them Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, and Katharine Hepburn. RKO also distributed films for independent producers: from 1936 to 1954, it released Walt Disney's features and shorts, and from 1941 also handled Samuel Goldwyn's productions. During this time the RKO Studio Club was founded by Errol Leslie "Sandy" Sanders. In addition to those signed by Selznick, RKO stars of the 1930s included Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as well as Constance Bennett and Ann Harding, who had come over from Pathé; among the studio's directors were John Ford, George Cukor, George Stevens and Leo McCarey. Lacking the resources of the other major studios, many RKO pictures of this period make up in style what they lacked in production values.

Early in the 1930s, the Justice Department forced a re-organization of RCA, and as a result RCA reduced its holdings in RKO. Control passed to the investor Floyd Odlum and the Rockefeller brothers. But the shaky finances and excesses of the Kennedy-Sarnoff years could not carry RKO through the depression, and in 1932 it sank into receivership. A corporate re-organization in the mid-1930's led to better times. From 1935 onward, the Pathé name was used only on newsreels and documentaries; all features went out under the revised name "RKO Radio Pictures."

Propelled by the box-office boom of World War II and more stable management under Charles Koerner and Dore Schary, RKO made a strong comeback in the 1940s. Koerner, former head of the RKO theater chain, favored star-driven pictures. But RKO no longer had major stars under contract, so he made deals with the biggest names whereby they would appear in one RKO picture each year. Thus RKO pictures of the mid- and late-forties offered Bing Crosby, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Claudette Colbert and others who were usually priced above RKO's league. Film noir became something of a house style at RKO, and its 1940s list of contract-players reads like a who's-who of noir: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Robert Ryan, Lawrence Tierney, Jane Russell and George Raft among them.

More so than other major studios, RKO relied on B-pictures to fill up its schedule. These low-budget films served as training ground for new directors, among them Anthony Mann, Nicholas Ray and Robert Wise, and some RKO Bs, like Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, Hitler's Children, The Narrow Margin and Isle of the Dead are remembered today.

After years of weathering financial ups-and-downs, Floyd Odlum decided to cash in his RKO holdings, and in 1947 put his shares on the market. It was widely assumed that J. Arthur Rank, then expanding his British and American holdings, would be the buyer. But to the surprise of many, in 1948 Howard Hughes gained control by acquiring 25% of the outstanding stock. During his tenure RKO again suffered, as Hughes' eccentric management style took a heavy toll. Within weeks of taking control, he dismissed two-thirds of the work force; production was shut down for six months in 1949 while Hughes undertook to investigate the politics of all remaining studio employees. Completed pictures would be sent back for re-shooting if Hughes felt his star (especially female) wasn't properly presented, or if a film's anti-communist politics weren't sufficiently clear.

Hughes let go of the RKO theaters in 1953 as settlement of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. anti-trust case; with the sale of the profitable theaters, the shaky status of the film studio became apparent. Busy during the Korean War years with the demands of his aircraft-manufacturing and TWA holdings, Hughes found the steady stream of lawsuits from RKO's minority shareholders to be a nuisance. Anxious to be rid of their charges of malfeasance and mis-management, Hughes offered to buy out all other stockholders. By the end of 1954, at a cost of $24 million, he had gained total control of RKO, thus becoming the first sole-owner of a studio since Hollywood's pioneer days. Six months later, in July, 1955, Hughes abruptly sold RKO to General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures he had personally produced, including those made at RKO; he also retained the contract of his discovery Jane Russell. For Howard Hughes, this was the end of his twenty-five year role in Hollywood.

In taking control of the studio, General Tire also restored RKO's links to broadcasting. General Tire had bought the Yankee Network, a New England regional radio network based on WNAC-AM in Boston, in 1943. In 1950, it bought the West Coast regional Don Lee Broadcasting System. Then, in 1952, it bought the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owner of WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York City. General Tire then merged its broadcasting interests into a new division, General Teleradio. When General Tire bought RKO, it merged General Teleradio into it as RKO Teleradio Pictures. In 1957, the name became RKO General.

Thomas O'Neill, son of General Tire's founder William O'Neill, and chairman of the broadcasting group, saw that General Tire's new television stations, indeed all stations, would need programming. In 1953 O'Neill had approached Hughes about buying RKO's film library; with the 1955 purchase of the studio that library was his, and rights to 700 pre-1948 RKO films were quickly put up for sale. The asking price of $15.5 million convinced other timid studios that their libraries held profit potential. The C&C Television Corp. , a subsidiary of the beverage maker C&C Cantrell & Cochrane, bought RKO's library and offered it to independent stations with ads for C&C Cola already edited into the pictures. By 1956 all of RKO's classic pre-1948 films were playing widely on television, and for some half-forgotten films like Citizen Kane, it meant rediscovery by the public.

General Tire made a half-hearted effort to run the studio, hiring veteran producer William Dozier to head production. Most RKO pictures of this era are either remakes of earlier successes, or enlarged B-pictures. Years of mismanagement had driven away many directors, producers and stars; convinced that RKO was sinking, both Goldwyn and Disney left, Disney to set up its own distribution firm in 1954. After a year and a half of mixed success, General Tire shut down production at RKO for good at the end of January, 1957.

The studio lots in Hollywood and Culver City were sold to Desilu Productions later in 1957 for $6.5 million. Desilu would be acquired by Gulf and Western Industries in 1967, who would then merge it with its other production company Paramount Pictures, and the former RKO Hollywood lot became home to Paramount Television (now CBS Paramount Television, owned by CBS Corporation), which it remains to this day.

With the closing down of production, RKO also shut its distribution exchanges; from 1957 through late 1959, remaining pictures were released through others, including Warner Bros., Universal and MGM. By the end of 1959, all that remained of the ambitious studio was the parent company, RKO General. It became the holding company for all of General Tire's broadcasting, soft-drink bottling, airline (the original Frontier Airlines), and hotels enterprises.

Years afterward, Thomas O'Neill claimed that General Tire had broken-even on its investment in RKO. He claimed that the sale of the film library and studio lots, along with the profits from its own productions, had let them walk away cleanly.

Notable RKO Pictures

1930s

• Cimarron (1931)
• Bird of Paradise (1932)
• The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
• King Kong (1933)
• Little Women (1933)
• Morning Glory (1933)
• The Gay Divorcee (1934)
• Of Human Bondage (1934)
• Alice Adams (1935)
• The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)
• Roberta (1935)
• Top Hat (1935)
• Swing Time (1936)
• Shall We Dance (1937)
• Stage Door (1937)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• Gunga Din (1939)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
• Love Affair (1939)

1940s

• Kitty Foyle (1940)
• My Favorite Wife (1940)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• The Little Foxes (1941; distribution only)
• Suspicion (1941)
• The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
• Cat People (1943)
• Mr. Lucky (1943)
• The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
• The Spanish Main (1945; first full Technicolor production)
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946; distribution only)
• Crossfire (1946)
• It's a Wonderful Life (1946; distribution only)
• Notorious (1946)
• The Spiral Staircase (1946)
• Out of the Past (1947)
• Fort Apache (1948)
• I Remember Mama (1948)
• Joan of Arc (1948; first run distribution only)
• They Live by Night (1948)
• The Big Steal (1949)
• Holiday Affair (1949)
• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

1950s

• His Kind of Woman (1951)
• On Dangerous Ground (1951)
• Angel Face (1952)
• The Lusty Men (1952)
• Macao (1952)
• The Narrow Margin (1952)
• While the City Sleeps (1956)
• The Naked and the Dead (1958)

RKO General

The classic RKO General station lineup consisted of WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York, KHJ-AM-FM-TV in Los Angeles, KFRC-AM-FM in San Francisco, WHBQ-AM-FM-TV in Memphis, CKLW-AM-FM-TV in Detroit/Windsor, and the Yankee Network and its flagships WNAC-AM-FM-TV in Boston. The radio stations became famous as some of the leading adult contemporary, rock and top 40 stations in the world. However, RKO General's real legacy may be the longest licensing dispute in television history.

RKO General's licensing saga began in 1965 when it applied for renewal of the license for KHJ-TV in Los Angeles. Fidelity Television, a local group, challenged the license. At first, it charged RKO General with second-rate programming. Later, and more seriously, Fidelity claimed RKO General engaged in reciprocal trade practices. It claimed that General Tire made its vendors purchase advertising time on RKO stations if they still wanted to sell General Tire's products. The RKO General and General Tire executives who testified before the Federal Communications Commission rejected the accusations. An administrative judge found in favor of Fidelity, but the FCC remanded the matter for further findings in 1972. While the KHJ hearings were underway, RKO faced a license challenge for WNAC-TV in Boston. The FCC conditioned renewal of RKO's license for KHJ-TV on the WNAC proceeding. When RKO applied for renewal of WOR-TV in New York, the FCC conditioned this renewal on the WNAC proceeding as well.

The Canadian government later tightened rules on foreign ownership of radio and television stations, forcing RKO to sell its Windsor cluster to Canadian interests in 1970.

On June 21, 1974; an administrative law judge renewed WNAC's license despite finding that General Tire had engaged in reciprocal trade practices. However, in 1975, one of the original competitors for WNAC-TV asked the FCC to take another look. It alleged that General Tire bribed foreign officials, maintained a slush fund for American campaign contributions and misappropriated foreign corporate funds. The proceedings dragged on for six years.

On June 6, 1980; the FCC stripped RKO of WNAC's license. Factors in the decision were the reciprocal trade practices of the 60s, false financial filings by General Tire, and gross misconduct by General Tire in non-broadcast fields. The ultimate basis for the revocation, however, was RKO's dishonesty before the FCC. RKO denied numerous allegations of corporate wrongdoing on General Tire's part during several proceedings from 1975 to 1977. However, in 1977, as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission settlement, General Tire admitted to an eye-popping litany of corporate misconduct. The FCC found that RKO had displayed a "lack of candor" regarding General Tire's misconduct and thus threatened "the integrity of the Commission's process." The FCC ruling also meant that RKO lost the KHJ and WOR licenses as well. RKO appealed the decision to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The court upheld the WNAC revocation solely on the grounds of RKO's dishonesty. It ordered a rehearing of the proceedings for KHJ and WOR. RKO General appealed to the courts, but to settle the case, it sold WNAC-TV's assets to New England Television, a merger of two of the original competitors for that station. As part of the settlement, the FCC granted a full license to New England Television, which renamed the station WNEV-TV. The station has since become WHDH-TV.

In 1983, General Tire persuaded Congress to pass a law that would require the FCC to automatically renew the license of any VHF television station that voluntarily relocated to a state without a VHF television station. New Jersey was the only state that fit that description at the time. At that point, RKO General officially moved WOR-TV's city of license from New York to Secaucus, New Jersey; where it remains today. However, for all practical purposes, it remained a New York station. Ironically, WOR-AM was first licensed to nearby Newark and didn't move to New York until 1941. A year after the renewal of WOR-TV, General Tire reorganized its far-flung corporate interests into a holding company, GenCorp. General Tire and RKO General became the leading subsidiaries of the new company. WOR-TV's move did little to relieve the regulatory pressure on RKO General, and GenCorp put the station on the market in 1986. MCA won a bidding war with Group W for the station. The sale closed in April 1987, and the station was renamed WWOR-TV.

The WOR-TV sale came just in the nick of time for RKO. Later in 1987, FCC administrative law judge Edward Kuhlmann found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee and recommended that the FCC strip RKO of its licenses. Kuhlmann based his ruling on numerous instances of dishonesty by RKO. Among other things, RKO misled advertisers about its ratings, engaged in fraudulent billing, lied to the FCC about a destroyed audit report and filed false financial statements during the WNAC proceedings. kuhlmann described RKO's conduct as the worst case of dishonesty ever brought before the FCC.

The group by this time included WOR-AM and WRKS-FM (the former WOR-FM) in New York, KHJ-TV and KRTH-AM-FM (the former KHJ-AM-FM) in Los Angeles, WHBQ-AM-FM-TV in Memphis and six other radio stations. GenCorp and RKO planned to appeal, claiming that they had fired every party responsible for the misconduct. However, the FCC told RKO that it would almost certainly deny any appeals and strip the licenses, and urged RKO to sell the stations in order to avoid this indignity. The parent company, GenCorp, was then involved in a hostile takeover bid by an investor group, and was hungry for cash as a result of paying a premium on its own shares to stave off the takeover.

Over the next three years, RKO dismantled its broadcast operations. WOR-AM went to Buckley Broadcasting, WRKS to the Summit Communications Group and KRTH-AM-FM to Beasley. KHJ-TV went to Disney and became KCAL-TV. The group's last broadcast holding, the Memphis cluster, was sold in 1990. RKO was forced to sell the stations at considerably less than market value (the group was estimated to be worth at least $750 million).

Television stations formerly owned by RKO

Radio stations formerly owned by RKO

(a partial listing)

RKO Pictures

As part of a reorganization of GenCorp following a failed hostile takeover bid, the company's flagship tire division, General Tire, was sold to Germany's Continental Tire. What remained of RKO General was sold in 1989 when it was acquired by Post cereals heiress Dina Merrill and her husband, producer Ted Hartley and re-named RKO Pictures. They announced that, after a 32-year break, RKO would be back in the movie business; they did launch several projects either for television or, as a partner, feature films. RKO also produced a 2002 stage version of the 1937 Astaire-Rogers vehicle Shall We Dance, under the title "Never Gonna Dance".

The present company, RKO Pictures LLC, is the owner of all the trademarks and logos connected with RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. and moreover the rights about stories, scripts, screenplays, remakes, sequels, and prequels, connected with the RKO library, belong to RKO Pictures LLC.

The theatrical, television and video distribution rights, however, are scattered around the world. For example, the US rights to the pre-1948 RKO film library passed to United Artists in the 1960s; UA had been acquired in 1981 by MGM, and in 1986 MGM/UA's considerable library had been bought by Turner Entertainment. Finally, Turner had sold out to Time Warner, which controls and distributes the bulk of the RKO library today, even though RKO continues to hold the copyright. The RKO-distributed Disney features are now controlled by Disney and Buena Vista. The Merrill-Hartley RKO Pictures has reprinted some RKO titles in the public domain, offering them to television with a modernized version of the old RKO logos. In the UK, the rights to the RKO library are currently held by Universal Studios.

All RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. films produced between 1929 and 1957 have the opening logo identified by a famous trademark, the globe and radio-tower. The closing logo is an equally famous trademark identified by a triangle pointing down with a thunderbolt.

References