George Atkinson (video rental businessman)

George William Atkinson ( born June 2, 1935 in Shanghai, † 3 March 2005 in Northridge, California ) was an American stuntman, amateur actor and businessman. He is considered the founding father of video rental stores.

Atkinson was born in China and came at the age of 14 years with his family back to the U.S. and moved to Los Angeles. He was involved in several films as a stuntman and bit player. In the fall of 1977 he opened in Los Angeles, the first worldwide video library.

Movie studios in Hollywood began at that time to market video copies of their films. A film then cost about 50 dollars. Atkinson believed that most people would not be willing to spend this amount for a video they would watch only a few times. He then started his hire, the Video Station on Wilshire Boulevard, with 50 at that time on the market each video films on VHS and Betamax copy. Among the first copies were the films French Connection - focus Brooklyn and the Western comedy Two bandits. In order to collect funds for the acquisition of other films, he led a club membership. An annual membership cost $ 50 and a lifetime membership $ 100. Membership entitled to rent a video for $ 10 per day. The business model quickly became a huge success and Atkinson operational at the height of his success, a video store chain with over 600 stores on franchising basis. The mid-1980s left Atkinson video station because his company had reported in the balance sheets to high profits.

Video Rental sat down with the falling prices for VCR worldwide. In the U.S. alone, there are now (2005) 24,000 video stores that give more than 2.6 billion DVDs and VHS videos.

Atkinson died at the age of 69 from emphysema.