Have you heard about Jamshedji Framji Madan?

The Parsi business person, film magnate, and owner of Madan Theatres, at one point, controlled more than 50 percent of the box office collections during India’s silent film era.

Born on 27 April 1856 in Navsari, Gujarat, Madan grew up in relative prosperity in Bombay (Mumbai).

His father fell into financial ruin owing to a land scheme, which led Madan to begin looking for work early.

He joined an amateur drama club, Elphinstone Natak Mandali, as a curtain puller and then became an actor in 1868. Madan was a natural on stage and travelled the length and breadth of India with the drama club.

In his late twenties, he decided to start his own business as a wine merchant and general provisions supplier and moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata). The business was a success.

He used the profits generated from his businesses to produce plays, build dance and theatre halls, establish playhouses, and even buy the famous Corinthian Theatre and Alfred Theatre in Calcutta.

At the turn of the 20th century, movies from the West were being shown to audiences in India. Seeing an opportunity, he established the Elphinstone Bioscope Company (a precursor to Madan Theatres) to exhibit foreign films in the city.

As early as 1902, he bought cinema equipment from an agent of the Pathe company (in France) and began organising ‘bioscope’ showings in tents pitched at various key locations in Calcutta.

In 1907, he built India’s first purpose-built cinema hall, the Elphinstone Picture Palace in Kolkata (which was recently demolished as Chaplin Theatre), for the exhibition of the films he acquired.

To supplement his coffers, he also acquired the exclusive rights to exhibit Pathé Frères films, a major French film equipment and production company, in the Indian subcontinent.

Madan Theatres Limited was officially incorporated on 27 September 1919 and was registered with the Registrar of Companies in Calcutta.

Until the Wall Street Crash of 1929, his company Madan Theatres became the largest filmmaking, distribution, and theatre business in India. They were the first exhibitors of talkies in India. In 1931, just months after Ardeshir Irani directed and produced India’s first ever talkie, Alam Ara, Madan Theatres produced the first Bengali talkie, Jamai Sashthi.

A year later, the company produced Indra Sabha, a film directed by his third son, JJ Madan, which to this day holds the world record for the most songs in a single film at 71.

However, the film production empire he built suffered massively due to the Wall Street Crash. In 1937, Madan Theatres produced its last film before shutting down for good.