Closing Curtain
Skouras was brought low by the excesses on such films as Cleopatra (1963), where cost overruns set in motion a shareholder revolt that dethroned him. Darryl F. Zanuck was elected president of the company while Spyros worked in the role of chairman of the company for a number of years.
In parallel with his work in the film industry Skouras had, like many of his countrymen, invested in the shipping industry. Thus in the 1960s, his Prudential Lines owned seven ships, two tankers and five cargo ships, that cruised the world seas. In 1969, Prudential Lines bought out the Grace Lines. In the last years of his life, he disengaged from the movie world that he had served for so long, and spent more time on his various maritime projects, which were ultimately run by his son Spyros Skouras Jr.
Skouras died from a heart attack at the age of 78.
Read more about this topic: Spyros Skouras
Famous quotes containing the words closing and/or curtain:
“Although sleep pressed upon my closing eyelids, and the moon, on her horses, blushed in the middle of the sky, nevertheless I could not leave off watching your play; there was too much fire in your two voices.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)
“We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, “Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday”?”
—Michéal MacLiammóir (1899–1978)