Personnel

Last week the following were news: Largest chain of cinemansions in the Midwest is Chicago's Balaban & Katz Corp., first to install theatre refrigeration, first to cut dull shots from newsreels. When Paramount Publix Corp. acquired Balaban & Katz seven years ago B. & K.'s president, Sam Katz, became Paramount Publix's vice president in charge of theatre operations. For the past two years Paramount Publix has not been doing so well (see p. 46), nor has B. & K., which lately passed its $7 preferred stock dividend. Two months ago Sam Katz resigned from Paramount Publix after directors refused to support his management policies. Last week as a natural sequence he resigned as president of B. & K.

B. & K. directors immediately elected Barney Balaban, longtime secretary-treasurer and financial head of the company. Oldest of seven sons of a Russian immigrant who ran a grocery store on Chicago's West Side, Barney Balaban got into the theatre business before the War, organized B. & K. with Sam Katz in 1917. He had three brothers in B. & K. with him, one of whom, John, was elected last week to succeed him as secretary-treasurer. One brother is dead; one left the show business to become a Christian Science reader. Barney Balaban is 46, bald, quiet, reserved, able. He rides horseback nearly every morning. In the silent picture days it was he who thought of having orchestra scores to fit the picture's moods.

Wendell Louis Willkie, formerly a partner in the law firm of Weadock & Willkie, was elected president of Commonwealth & Southern Corp., big Morgan-Drexel-Bonbright Utility holding company. Bernard Capen Cobb, who has held both the presidency and chairmanship for the last year, will continue as chairman, the corporation's chief executive post.

Two years ago Sugarman Frank Clifford Lowry was elected president of National Biscuit Co. Roy Everett Tomlinson was chairman. Last week Chairman Tomlinson stepped down to the presidency, President Lowry stepped down to a vice-presidency. Asked the reason, President Tomlinson said: "Throughout the company we are carrying double or combining jobs wherever possible to save overhead. In this spirit the offices of chairman and president have been combined." Marius Boeger, vice chairman of Hamburg-American Line, was elected chairman, succeeding the late Dr. Wilhehn Cuno (TIME, Jan. 16).

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