08/21/2025
This photo from our collection is dated August 1927 and shows A.H. Blank and wife Anna at The Royal Box in Paris. The Royal Box in Paris was open from 1922 until 1932 and was considered the world's first nightclub. Many members of the Lost Generation, who were expatriates who went to Paris following World War I, frequented the club including people like Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks, Cole Porter, and Ernest Hemingway.
A.H. Blank was born in Romania on July 27, 1879, the son of Israel and Miriam Blank. The Blank family immigrated eight years later, settling in Council Bluffs. After an early and brief career as a balloon salesman and midway barker in Omaha during the Trans Mississippi Exposition of 1898, he turned with marked success to a loan and real estate business. In 1911, A.H. opened the Casino, the largest Motion Picture Theatre in Des Moines and thus began a successful career in the theatre business. He acquired the franchises of other theaters in midwestern states. Realizing that exhibitors had to be interested in the production of pictures, Mr. Blank and his old friends Barney Balaban and Sam Katz helped form the First National Picture Corporation, which developed into one of the most successful production and distribution Companies in the industry. Blank constructed and acquired new theaters in town after town, and by 1926 operated some 78 houses. In 1926, Blank formed the Central States Theatre Corporation, and when Paramount Publix Corporation went into bankruptcy, he organized the Tri-States Theatre Corporation in 1933. Blank later became a permanent partner of Paramount Picture Corporation. His son, Myron Blank, assumed complete ownership of Central States Theatre Corporation in 1951.
A.H. Blank was an active philanthropist, most known for Raymond Blank Memorial Hospital. What was to become Blank Children’s Hospital was established in memory of Blank’s son who died at the age of 33. Raymond Blank Memorial Hospital was recognized at the time as one of the most modern and well-equipped children’s hospitals in the country.
