I am Ren Kessler, a failed actor and director.  I majored in Theater Arts my first time through college, and Film Making the second time.  I wasn't very good at either, but along the way I found that I was good at two other things: computers and research.

I began researching the movie studios in roughly 1985.  It began while I worked my one and only Hollywood job and I had the chance to drive all over Hollywood, Burbank, Culver City, and all the places where the movies are made.  After talking to my mother about this new found interest, she purused several used book stores and found several books.  They made a great birthday present.  Then I bought a ream of paper and a pencil and began by writing out the name, location, and some details of the studios.

Keeping this "analog," linear version used up a lot of paper and erasers, and I never could quite get it organized.  Thank goodness I learned to use a computer, which helped keep me organized and made making changes a snap.  I read dozens of books, wrote letters to historians and old timers, and searched for newspaper articles at the library.

Thank you, Internet.  Letters turned into emails.  Web sites eventually came along, but were few and far between and lacked credibility and accuracy.  The Internet also allowed me to find books I previously did not know about.  Slowly pictures became available on the internet and replaced photocopies.   I bought scanners so I could digitize my book research.  Early versions of Wikipedia provided unverifiable information, and to this day it, while having improved greatly, it still has a lot of inaccuracies and opposing information.

We may never know  all the history we need and may never get complete accuracy.  The studios simply did not track themselves, and most historians were ambivalent.  Newspaper and magazine accounts were plentiful at the time, but are hard to find and research now.  Much of what we know is still anecdotal.

This site was started in July, 2018.  Because of the huge amount of information I have collected, and the time it takes to create nice looking pages, I anticipate the site will not be completed until some time in 2020 or 2021.  It is proving to be a slow process.