Biography of 'POOLE, John Kenneth Stafford ‘J.K.S.’'
Cinema proprietor and exhibitor
Born: 1911, Gloucester
Died: 1998, Edinburgh
Poole was born into a family with over forty years of showmanship behind them. Charles and George Poole had started out in 1870 as musicians touring with Moses Gompertz’s Panorama, before setting up their own touring company. They introduced films into their shows and in 1905 established their first cinema in Ipswich. The young Poole was eager to enter the family business. He was educated in Edinburgh and Durham, before attending university where he studied engineering at the same time learning how to become a projectionist and assisting in the family business in Edinburgh where Poole’s Myriorama show was put on every Christmas until 1928.
At the age of 21 he moved to Aberdeen to manage the family’s two cinemas in the city, the Palace and the Regent. During the war Poole was stationed in Cairo and held the position of entertainment officer. It was while stationed abroad that he met Vincent Singleton, the younger brother of George Singleton, the owner of Glasgow’s specialist Cosmo Cinema, at that time the only cinema in Scotland to show foreign films.
On returning to Scotland after the war Poole decided to open his own cinema in Edinburgh to show foreign films. In 1949 the King’s Cinema in the Tollcross area of the city became the Cameo Cinema. Following the death of his father in 1950 Poole took over the reins of the family business. In 1968 he became the President of the Cinema Exhibitors Association. He retired in 1982 after 53 years in the business.
Researcher: Eamonn Butler
Films associated with 'COCOZZA, Enrico'
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GAUMONT BRITISH NEWS, WEDDING AT ALL SOULS [1791]Add to my filmsThe wedding of Mr J. Poole and Miss I. Sterckx at All Souls, Langholm Place, London, on 3rd of September, 1936. |
Onsite only |
1936 mute bw |
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