How to Make Marbles

Television air waves were "empty and hungry" when Chicago Lawyer Milton Gordon set out to appease the hunger in 1953. As a vice president of Walter E. Heller & Co., Gordon worked on movie financing, helped launch United Artists (TIME, April 28), saw the need of small stations for television films. Teaming up with Hollywood Producer Edward Small, Gordon formed Television Programs of America, Inc. as a production and distribution company. Into T.P.A. Gordon and Small put $125,000 apiece, bought their first series. Ramar of the Jungle, for $100,000. In the era before Hollywood features became standard late-show fare, stations snapped up Ramar; eventually it grossed $4,000,000.

Gordon and Small went on to produce pilot films for such shows as Lassie, Charlie Chan, Tugboat Annie, The Halls of Ivy and Count of Monte Cristo. T.P.A. then sold the pilots, got such sponsors as National Biscuit, Campbell Soup and International Harvester to help pay for the production costs on the series. In 1957 Producer Small returned to making features on a full-time basis, sold his interest back to T.P.A. for $2,000,000.

Last week Gordon, 49, showed how profitable filling blank spaces in the air waves can be. As he sold T.P.A. to Oilman Jack Wrather's Independent Television Corp., Gordon said: "I was simply in the position of picking up my marbles at a time when they had pyramided far beyond my original expectations." Value of Gordon's marbles: $11,350,000.

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