Academy Founders 20

N.B. The member numbers follow The Internet Movie Database's list order announcing the Academy in January 1927. 

20. Joseph M. Schenck (1876-1961) of the Producers Branch, shown here (at right) with Dr. and Mrs. Harry W. Martin. Mrs. Martin is better known as Louella Parsons (Louella Rose Oettinger, 1881-1972), the scenarist and gossip columnist.

Joseph M. Schenck came to New York in 1893 and to Hollywood in 1917, the year after he married Norma Talmadge (1894-1957). He had previously been in partnership with his brother Nick; he now worked with Marcus Loew to combine Metro Pictures with Goldwyn Pictures, the precursor to the merger that produced MGM. In the same period, Schenck became the chairman and then president of United Artists. By the late 1920s, he was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.