Inventor of video store dies

AV sez, "George Atkinson, the man who opened the first video rental store in the 70's has died at 69. To start his rental business, Mr. Atkinson bought 50 movies that had recently been made available on video, including 'The French Connection,' 'The Sound of Music' and 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.' He then advertised their availability for rental in a one-inch ad in The Los Angeles Times. Customers arrived in droves and willingly paid the $10-a-day rental fee. (Only the wealthy could afford the $1,000 that VCR's cost then.)"

Of course, back in those days most of the studios were embroiled in a lawsuit against Sony for selling VCRs, which they viewed as tools for infringement, and they were all swearing up and down that they would never release their movies on video. it took brains and guts to open a video store that rented out Hollywood movies at a time when Hollywood was swearing enmity to the VCR and proposing to have it banned by law. Link (Thanks, AV!)