Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd Outsiders Who Built Irish Entertainment: Maurice and Louis Elliman

This tells the story of the birth of modern entertainment in Ireland through two generations of an immigrant family — from the birth of cinema through to the end of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Maurice Elliman arrived in 1892 as a penniless refugee from Tsarist Russia. He started out by projecting magic lantern shows in travelling fairgrounds. By the time he died he was hailed as a pioneer of cinema and ‘the father of the Dublin film trade’. His son Louis became Ireland’s ‘Mr. Show Business’, early 20th century Ireland’s greatest impresario. Louis turned the business into a national entertainment empire, comprising over 30 cinemas and major Dublin theatres. He brought to Ireland international leading lights from the worlds of theatre, opera, dance and music, giving audiences entertainment equal to any on New York’s Broadway. When World War II closed the seaways to international stars, Louis nurtured homegrown talent, many of whom later shone on global stages. Interwoven with this story is the intimate saga of an immigrant family finding its feet, along with a rare glimpse into Hollywood at its mightiest captured in Louis’s journal of his lavish, high-profile Tinsel Town visit in 1950. Autorid: Wendy Elliman