| Biography | From an article by Arthur Abeles in Variety:
"But the big man on the scene during and after the war was Sam Eckman Jr., who ran MGM's distribution company and the Empire and Ritz cinemas. Sam succeeded Sir William Jury who had the MGM franchise. Eckman moved to England under a deal which gave him no salary but a large percentage of the increase over the Jury results, and within three years he was making more money than the president and the vice-president of MGM put together. When his contract was up, they put him on a salary, but by that time he had made a fortune.
"During the war he bought antique furniture at ridiculously low prices. He only bought the best, under the guidance of Frank Partridge, the well known Bond Street dealer, and where possible bought in pairs, which more than doubled the value; as a result, 10 years after the war he had a second fortune, larger than the first.
"Sam always carried a silvertopped cane in his right hand and what looked to be a prayer book in his left. The prayer book turned out to be a padded leather case containing Cuban cigars which he chain smoked. (He left the wettest ends I've ever seen.)
"Head Of The Table At the Kinematograph Renters Society, his chair was at the head of the long conference table and was nailed to the floor. The meetings started at 10 o'clock and Eckman always entered the room on the dot of 20 minutes to 11. Every once in a while a new member, himself a bit late, would spot the empty chair and sit in it while the other members awaited "The Entrance" with delight. Sam never said anything to the intruder. He just laid the "prayer book" down in front of him and stared and it didn't take more than a second or two for the intruder to slink off, to whoops of laughter.
"When someone spoke, the men around the table looked at Sam before saying anything to see how it was going down with him, in exactly the same way as audiences look at the Royal box when a slightly off-color joke is told to see how the Queen is reacting.
"The big disappointment in Eckman's life was the fact that Max Milder got hold of the 37.5% of ABPC, and not he, even though MGM was ABC's main supplier. The answer was simple. The owners didn't think they would feel comfortable talking with him. He frightened them.
"But 37.5% or no, he insisted, and got, parity in playing time with Warners, when each circuit booking was worth at least £100,000 in film rental, at $4.80 to the pound. In the early '60s Metro had a change of management. The new boys refused to cope with Eckman's arrogance and he was replaced. He did various things thereafter, and
held a few directorships National Screen Service was one of them and finally decided to go back to New York, which he had left over 30 years before.
"Leaving London, which never turns its back on former heroes, was the biggest mistake he ever made, and walking down Broadway, with his silver-topped cane and cigar case, he looked at best like an out of work actor. He died a couple of years later, a most unhappy and embittered man; and now few remember the tremendous contribution he made to the distribution side of the business in this country during his tenure as managing director of MGM when it was head and shoulders over all the other companies."
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