Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (commonly known as
Columbia Pictures or simply
Columbia) is an American
film studio,
production company and
film distributor that is a member of the
Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of
Sony Entertainment's
Sony Pictures subsidiary of the Japanese multinational conglomerate
Sony Corporation.
What would eventually become Columbia Pictures, CBC Film Sales Corporation, was founded on June 19, 1918 by
Harry Cohn, his brother Jack Cohn, and
Joe Brandt. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924 and went public two years later. In its early years, it was a minor player in Hollywood, but began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with a director
Frank Capra. With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the primary homes of the
screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbia's major contract stars were
Jean Arthur and
Cary Grant. In the 1940s,
Rita Hayworth became the studio's premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s.
Rosalind Russell,
Glenn Ford, and
William Holden also became major stars at the studio.
It is one of the leading film studios in the world and is a member of the
"Big Six" major American film studios. It was one of the so-called "
Little Three" among the eight major film studios of
Hollywood's
Golden Age. Today, it has become the world's fifth largest major film studio.