I.W. Schlesinger

I.W. Schlesinger (1871-1949) Industrialist, entrepreneur and impressario.

Born Isadore William Schesinger on 15 September, 1871 in the USA, he emigrated to Johannesburg, South Africa in 1894, initially working as a salesman for Pepsin Gum.

After the Boer War he built up the African Realty Trust (an insurance company) and developed wide-ranging business interests in insurance, farming and newspapers South Africa. He moved into the theatre in 1913, when he linked up with showman Harry Stodel to establish the African Theatres Trust (later African Consolidated Theatres) on 10 April, 1913, to save the struggling theatre industry. He bought private theatres in order to build new ones, and sold shares to the public, establishing a co-operative of theatre owners. He sponsored local plays and touring overseas groups. Later he moved into cinema, founding the African Films Trust, a film importing and distributing agency, building "bioscopes" throughout South Africa (or converting theatres for this purpose), supporting production and controlling distribution, founded African Film Productions to produce the world's first weekly newsreels, the well known African Mirror, and began with commercial radio broadcasting in South Africa in 1927 when he set up the African Broadcasting Company (ABC), bequeathing an efficient concern to the newly founded SABC in 1936.

In 1915 he founded the long-lasting publicity magazine Stage and Cinema to support and promote all his activites.