A. J. Balaban

A.J. Balaban was the second of eight children born in Chicago to Jewish parents Augusta "Goldie" (née Mandebursky, later Levin) from Odesa and grocery store owner Israel Balaban, from Tiraspol. Barney, the financial mainstay of the family, was the first born and in young adulthood would come to work for the Western Cold Storage Company, earning $25 a week. After A.J. came a daughter, Ida, followed by brothers John, Max, Dave, Harry and Elmer. The large family lived in back of a grocery store run by the parents.

At an early age, the two oldest boys would go to plays at local Chicago theatres, and Balaban confessed that "theatre fascinated me".

After a variety of odd jobs, Balaban found steady employment as an errand boy for local clothiers, hauling woolens and delivering suits. In his off hours, he pursued opportunities to sing, with his sister accompanying him on the piano. At his older brother's urging, he prepared a business card that read: "Abe Balaban, Singer. Character Songs."

On New Year's Eve, just before 1917 rolled in, Balaban proposed to Carrie Strump, a girl he had known in grade school and with whom he had become recently reacquainted. In April 1918, Balaban and his fiancé traveled to New York, where Balaban phoned Variety to get the name of a good rabbi to perform the marriage ceremony. The couple was wed on April 7, 1918.

In September 1922, Balaban's sister Ida, now Mrs. Sam Katz, died. Balaban's first child, Idajoy, named after her deceased aunt, was born in December. (Balaban and wife Carrie had two other children—daughter Cherry Blossom, born on her father's birthday in April 1924, and son Bruce in August 1928.)

In 1918, Balaban married Carrie Strump; they had three children Ida Joy (b. 1922), Cherry Blossom (b. 1924), and Bruce (b. 1928).

A.J. Balaban officially retired after nearly 10 years with the Roxy (1942–52) and the family returned to Geneva. In 1962, Balaban and his wife were in New York. They dined with friends and returned to their residence at the Laurelton Hotel where Balaban suffered a heart attack. He died on November 1, 1962, and was entombed at Waldheim Cemetery in the Balaban Mausoleum (built by Rapp & Rapp). Obituaries appeared in publications around the country and the world, including The New York Times, Time magazine, and Variety. Time, November 9, 1962, identified Balaban as a "Midwest impresario of the 1920s movie-palace era who operated on the idea that theatres should be 'a thing of beauty, a fairyland,'" and in Variety, (November 7, 1962), Abel Green wrote, "Like a number of other greats of a great era of theatrical expansion, years of retirement and obscurity made A. J Balaban relatively an unknown to many newcomers. They might be prone to doubt his former importance."

At a Chicago Convention of Publix Theatres in July, 1930, his brother Barney Balaban (who would continue on with Paramount and become president in 1936,) said: "I found a Chicago Sunday Examiner clipping, dated 1916, two years before the opening of the Riviera, our first stage deluxe house. In this article, my brother A.J. is quoted as prophesying the type of theatre now represented in the Chicago, Tivoli, Uptown and Michigan and stating that within a few years, we would have one of these theatres erected on the West Side, another on the North Side, one South, and one in the Loop. I thought at the time that Abe was dreaming. In rapid succession followed the Tivoli, Chicago, Uptown, and other theatres and A.J.'s prophecy of 1916 became a fact."