Pat Powers

Patrick Anthony Powers (October 8, 1870 – July 30, 1948) was an American businessman who was involved in the movie and animation industry of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s as a distributor and producer. His firm, Celebrity Productions, was the first distributor of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons (1928–29). After one year, Disney split with Powers, who started another animation studio with Disney's lead animator, Ub Iwerks. Early career Powers was born in Buffalo, New York. According to the Buffalo Courier-Express obituary dated August 1, 1948, his sister, Mary Ellen Powers, lived in Buffalo for her entire life. Powers partnered with Joseph A. Schubert Sr. and sold phonographs from 1900 to 1907, when they formed the Buffalo Film Exchange, which purchased films from producers and rented them to nickelodeons. In 1910, Powers left Buffalo for New York City, where he founded the Powers Moving Picture Company, also frequently billed in advertisements and credited in his films as "Powers Picture Plays". Early examples of his studio's releases include The Woman Hater (1910) with Violet Heming, Pearl White, and Stuart Holmes; the comedy Lost in a Hotel (1911); the children's fantasy film An Old-Time Nightmare (1911); and the Western Red Star's Honor (1911). In 1912, Powers' company merged with Carl Laemmle's Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) film company and others to create what eventually would become Universal Pictures. He served as treasurer of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Later, in 1916 and 1917, Powers introduced a cartoon series titled Fuller Pep, which was similar to Paul Terry's Farmer Al Falfa series. Nine cartoons were produced.