Born in France to British parents, William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson stayed in that country until age 19, when he, his mother and sisters to produce and distribute films. Dickson produced and directed many of Biograph's early films, but by the turn of the century he had taken over management of the company's European branch, headquartered in England. He died there in 1935.
Grew up in London, England, UK
Scott Smiths book "The Film 100", which ranks the 100 most important people of the first 100 years of cinema, ranks Dickson at #1 on the list. The reasons given are simple. He was a photographer who was fascinated with the idea of making photographs move in the fashion of magic lantern drawings. He sailed to America, ingratiated himself to Thomas A. Edison and convinced Edison to allow him to work on his dream. He collected for Edisons company the patents for cellulose film and the emulsion for that film. He then developed the movie camera and oversaw the Eastman Companys development of movie film. He also decided that movie film should be 35mm wide. In other words, he ranks as the most important person in motion picture history because he invented them.
On December 21st 1895, he founded the American Mutoscope Company, later to become American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., popularly known as "American Biograph" or just "Biograph." Over the next two decades, many of the biggest names of the silent screen would get their first movie jobs at Biograph, including D.W. Griffith , Mary Pickford , Mack Sennett , Blanche Sweet , Lionel Barrymore , Lillian Gish , Dorothy Gish , and Florence Lawrence. The company is now in existence today and is the oldest movie company in America, and continues to perpetuate the history and dreams of Dickson and its other founders.
Some books on the early days of the movie industry incorrectly list him as two separate people (William Kennedy and Laurie Dickson).
Pictured on one of a set of four 32 US commemorative postage stamps honoring "Pioneers of Communication", issued 22 February 1996. Also honored in the set are Eadweard Muybridge , Ottmar Mergenthaler (inventor of the Linoype machine), and Frederick Eugene Ives (inventor of the halftone photogravure printing process).
Though he was an important early employee of the Edison Co., Dickson secretly developed strong ties to Edison competitors. In 1895 he founded The American Mutoscope Company, that went on to become The American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. and to be the biggest American rival of the Edison Co.
Was the director and star of the very first surviving sound film, Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894) .
Invented the Kinetoscope with Eugne Lauste. A precursor to the modern television, it was capable of providing moving images in playback, along with rubber ear tubes to provide synchronized sound. It worked by synchronizing sound and images (roughly) with a mechanical belt, but due to belt slippage, the machine failed in its task more often than it succeeded.
Co-founded K-M-C-D Syndicate, a production company, in Chicago in 1894. It was reorganized later as the American Mutoscope Co.
