George Atkinson, 69, Captain of Video Rental
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
George Atkinson, considered the inventor of movie video rental, who opened a Los Angeles store in the late 1970s, died Thursday of emphysema. He was 69.
In the fall of 1977, Atkinson bought one Betamax and one VHS tape of each of the 50 movie titles that were sold to the public and rented them out at the Video Station, the first store he opened on Wilshire Boulevard, which spurred more than 600 franchises.
Atkinson charged $50 for an annual membership and $100 for a lifetime membership, which allowed viewers to rent the videos for $10 a day. He retired from Video Station in 1997.
