Kong was invented by a guy named Merian C. Cooper. He was born in Jacksonville, Fla., and went on to become a globetrotting adventurer, a really colorful guy. He was a war hero. He had been shot down a couple of times in both World War I and in the Polish-Russo War. He escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp. He had an amazing history.
Then he came back after the war and became a reporter for a while. And then he eventually became an explorer. He joined an explorer team and went around the world to all sorts of exotic places. And he and his partner, a guy named Ernest Schoedsack, started to make documentary films of these travels. So that’s how we sort of got into film. And then he also ended up going into aviation when commercial aviation was in its infancy.
During one of the expeditions that he went on, he and his partner made what they called “natural dramas.” They were sort of documentaries. They would go and film real people and real animals in exotic locations. But then they created a fictional plot. They would edit the documentary footage to create sort of a fiction film based on real footage. They made a lot of money and these things became very popular.
