American Zeus

<p> Alexander Pantages was 13 when he arrived in the U.S. in the 1880s after contracting malaria in Panama.</p><p> He opened his first motion picture theater in 1902 and went on to build one of the largest and most important independently-owned theater chains in the country. At the height of the Pantages Theaters' reach he owned or operated 78 theaters across the U.S. and Canada. He amassed a fortune yet he could not read or write English.</p><p> In 1929 he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old dancer--a scandal that destroyed his empire and reduced him to a pariah. The day his grandest theater the Pantages Hollywood opened in 1930 he lay sick in a jailhouse infirmary. His conviction was overturned a year later after an appeal to the California State Supreme Court but the question remains: How should history judge this theater pioneer wealthy magnate and embodiment of the American Dream?</p>