George Loane Tucker

A former railroad clerk, Tucker made a name for himself in 1913 with a film entitled Traffic in Souls (1913), a six-reel expose of white slavery. Tucker and Carl Laemmle financed the sum of $57,000 to make the film in New York, the film ultimately grossed $450,000. The success of the film enabled Laemmle, under pressure from Thomas Edison's Patent Trust, to follow the exodus to Hollywood and create his own studio, Universal City. Tucker was married to actress Elisabeth Risdon.