at the forefront of how to best ensure successful business in theatres. The March 18, 1950, edition of BoxOffice magazine offers Balaban's 18 tips for "personalized service"—and the need to make sure the patrons know about them. These included the original tenets that made B&K theatres so successful decades earlier—"the theatre should be a veritable fairyland of novelty, comfort, beauty and convenience", the on-site medical clinic, and the prohibition of gratuities, among them. Nearing the end of his career, Balaban persevered in demonstrating that the extension of courtesies to customers was a proven strategy for success. Personal life and death In 1918, Balaban married Carrie Strump; they had three children Ida Joy (b. 1922), Cherry Blossom (b. 1924), and Bruce (b. 1928). A.J. Balaban officially retired after nearly 10 years with the Roxy (1942–52) and the family returned to Geneva. In 1962, Balaban and his wife were in New York. They dined with friends and returned to their residence at the Laurelton Hotel where Balaban suffered a heart attack. He died on November 1, 1962, and was entombed at Waldheim Cemetery in the Balaban Mausoleum (built by Rapp & Rapp). Obituaries appeared in publications around the country and the world, including The New York Times, Time magazine, and Variety. Time, November 9, 1962, identified Balaban as a "Midwest impresario of the 1920s movie-palace era who operated on the idea that theatres should be 'a thing of beauty, a fairyland, and in Variety, (November 7, 1962), Abel Green wrote, "Like a number of other greats of a great era of theatrical expansion, years of retirement and obscurity made A. J Balaban relatively an unknown to many newcomers. They might be prone to doubt his former importance." At a Chicago Convention of Publix Theatres in July, 1930, his brother Barney Balaban (who would continue on with Paramount and become president in 1936,) said: "I found a Chicago Sunday Examiner clipping, dated 1916, two years before the opening of the Riviera, our first stage deluxe house. In this article, my brother A.J. is quoted as prophesying the type of theatre now represented in the Chicago, Tivoli, Uptown and Michigan and stating that within a few years, we would have one of these theatres erected on the West Side, another on the North Side, one South, and one in the Loop. I thought at the time that Abe was dreaming. In rapid succession followed