Henry Fonda in the Mohawk Valley

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, November 30, 2025

     The movie star Henry Fonda once said he had dinner with a member of the Schine Theatre Chain family following the 1939 premiere of “Drums Along the Mohawk” in the Mohawk Valley.

Directed by the legendary John Ford, the movie starred Henry Fonda as American Revolutionary War era settler Gil Martin. The plot was based on a best-selling historical novel written a few years earlier by Walter D. Edmonds, a native of Boonville.

In 1939, the Rialto in Amsterdam was chosen as one of 27 theaters in the United States for the premiere. The film also debuted at Schine theaters in Gloversville, Schenectady, Utica and Albany.

Entrepreneur Edward C. Klapp opened the 1,400-seat Rialto in 1917 at the corner of Market and Grove Streets in Amsterdam. In 1933, the Rialto became part of Gloversville’s Schine chain.

Meyer and Louis Schine, Jewish immigrants from Latvia, purchased the Glove Theatre in Gloversville in 1920. The Glove had been built in 1914 for live performances and is still in use today. The Schines made Gloversville the headquarters of their theater chain, which consisted of 167 movie houses at its peak.

Amsterdam transplant Fred Wojcicki from California recalled that Henry Fonda appeared at the Amsterdam premiere, although a Recorder clipping describing the Amsterdam premiere does not mention him.

Following a column raising questions about Fonda’s appearance at the 1939 Amsterdam premiere, Wojcicki wrote he first heard that story from local attorney Floyd Rhinehart but later heard a similar account from Fonda himself.

Wojcicki moved from Amsterdam to California in 1963 and held positions with Standard Brands Paint Company until retiring in 1989. Wojcicki married a woman from California who had relatives working in the movie industry--her brother-in-law was Frank Shugrue, a still photographer and her sister Jane Shugrue was a hairdresser.

In 1970, Fred and Phyllis Wojcicki visited a location shoot in Oregon where their relatives were working on the movie “Sometimes A Great Notion, ‘ starring Fonda and Paul Newman, who also directed the film.

Wojcicki said they had a conversation with Newman and Fonda, “Mr. Newman stated that I was from Amsterdam, New York, where the premiere of “Drums Along the Mohawk” took place. Mr. Fonda shook hands and recalled that he had dinner after a short appearance at the premiere with one of the Schine Theater family members, and dinner shortly before he had departed by car to Albany Airport where a private plane flew him to New York City.”

Fonda was a good choice to star in a movie about the Mohawk Valley. His ancestors originally came from Genoa, Italy, but migrated to the Netherlands. The Fondas then emigrated to America and patriarch Duow Fonda helped found what is now the village of Fonda. Henry Fonda’s paternal grandparents moved to Nebraska in the 1800s. The actor was born in Omaha in 1905 and died in 1982. Paul Newman died in 2008.

In 1980 Fonda’s controversial anti Vietnam War daughter Jane Fonda visited the Mohawk Valley to investigate her family history.

Then Montgomery County historian Anita Smith took the actress to a local cemetery where her ancestors were buried.

Smith once said history is not dull because it is being made fresh every day.

You may call Bob Cudmore at 518 346 6657 or email [email protected]