- Lee De Forest was born on August 26, 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA. He was a producer and director, known for Phonofilm (1923), A Musical Monologue (1923) and Syncopation and Song (1927). He was married to Marie Mosquini, Nora Stanton Blatch, Lucille Sheardown and Mary Mayo (concert singer). He died on June 30, 1961 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- SpousesMarie Mosquini(October 1930 - June 30, 1961) (his death)Nora Stanton Blatch(February 14, 1908 - 1911) (divorced, 1 child)Lucille Sheardown(1906 - 1907) (annulled)Mary Mayo (concert singer) (divorced, 2 children)
- Inventor of the Audion vacuum tube, which was a key component of all major communication devices (radio, telephone, radar, television) prior to the invention of the transistor.
- Developed a way to synchronize sound on film called Phonofilm in 1923, which became the basis for the introduction of talking pictures in 1927.
- His phonofilm sound films caught the first sound footage of a President of the United States on film in 1924. Filmed on August 11 with a special battery operated camera and sound recorder, President Calvin Coolidge spoke on film about taxation (with wildly inflated figures that did not match real tax statistics). It was intended to be used as a campaign aid in Coolidge's re-election that year. Ironically Coolidge's nickname was "Silent Cal.".
- More than 175 short films were made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process between 1921 and 1929. Surviving titles are at the Library of Congress, the British Film Institute, and the national film archives of Australia, Spain, and Argentina.
- Preident of De Forest Phonofilm Inc., a production company active from 1922-1927.
- [on radio advertising] What have you done with my child? You have sent him out on the street in rags of ragtime to collect money from all and sundry. You have made of him a laughingstock of intelligence, surely a stench in the nostrils of the gods of the ionosphere.
- [on television] While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.
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