2013 Essays

Caroline Frances Pugliese

Gunn, Fiona

As a founder and director of Pugliese Enterprises, a family-run film exhibition and production company, Caroline Pugliese owned and operated three theatres in Sydney from 1909 until 1922—the Alhambrain Haymarket, the Star Theatre in Bondi, and the Broadway in Leichhardt. According to reports in Kino Cinema International, running the theatres was a hands-on activity for the entire Pugliese family, with Caroline controlling the company finances and helming major business decisions and her children acting as ticket-sellers and projectionists (18). The Puglieses subsisted at the lower, populist end of the market, eking out an existence by showmanship and adding value via music and performance to film screenings. Like other small exhibitors in these early days, Pugliese experienced difficulty accessing a ready supply of motion pictures for screening, which may have prompted her foray into film production in partnership with son Humbert in 1917.