George Atkinson

George Atkinson was widely known as the father of the video rental industry. He worked as an actor in popular 60's television series, besides doing stand-in and stunt-double work. After the first consumer VCR's became available, he opened America's first video rental outlet, The Video Station, in West Los Angeles in 1977. He began by purchasing 50 Fox movie titles - such as "Mash," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and "The Sound of Music" - and offering them to customers in both Betamax and VHS formats. Sued by major studios for renting (rather than selling) their videos to consumers, Atkinson won before the Supreme Court under the "Doctrine of First Sale." His business prospered - and starting in 1978, he went on to establish a chain of more than 600 franchised Video Station stores in the U.S. and Canada. The newly created Video Software Dealers Association honored Atkinson as its first "Video Man of the Year" in 1981. The following year they named him "Video Retailer of the Year." Atkinson was inducted into the Video Hall of Fame in 1991.