Pathé, Charles (1863-1957), French film magnate. Charles Pathé began his career by exploiting the Phonograph, invented by Thomas Edison, in France, and then extended the business to trade in projectors and films by setting up Pathé Frères in 1896. From 1901 he concentrated on film production, together with Ferdinand Zecca. Pathé made films rapidly, and ploughed the profits back into the business to improve the production values of his films, and by 1905 the company was employing multiple production teams of scriptwriters, setbuilders, cameramen, directors, and so on. Thus, the Pathé company was the first to produce films on an industrial basis, and provided the model that the rest of the industry eventually followed.

At the beginning of the worldwide nickelodeon boom, Pathé films polished up the basic technical devices of film construction invented by the British film-makers, and with their quantity and quality they dominated the world market. Indeed, Pathé remained the largest film producer in the world up to 1914. Charles Pathé had a special interest in the educational powers of film, and his company produced far more factual films than any other. During World War I, Charles Pathé effectively abandoned his French production, and concentrated on the American branch, Pathé Exchange. When he resumed French production after the war, his company's films were unsuccessful against foreign imports, so he closed down the production side of his company and restricted it to distribution and exhibition. In 1929 he sold out his interest in Pathé Frères and retired. (See also Newsreel.)