* 1870 Waukesha, WI  - † 1956

As a theatre owner, he led a movement against the Edison Company, establishing Majestic Pictures in 1911. In 1912 he became president of the Mutual Film Corporation. The following year he lured D.W. Griffith away from Biograph and helped finance and distribute THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915). In the summer of 1915 he founded the Triangle Pictures Corporation, of which he was president until 1918. The company boasted the services of the top three creative talents of the American silent screen, D.W. Griffith, Thomas H. Ince, and Mack Sennett. However, Aitken's ambitious production plans ended in failure, and in 1920 he retired from the film business.