Stembridge Gun Rentals

• 1. The Drill Sergeant's Backlot

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  James Sidney Stembridge stood on the Paramount backlot in 1920. He had served as a drill sergeant in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. This military background became his ticket into Hollywood. He worked as an extra on Cecil B. DeMille's film The Squaw Man in 1913. DeMille complained that most extras did not know how to portray soldiers properly. Stembridge offered to coach them because he knew the drills. A friendship formed between the two men. When World War I began, movie sets struggled to access weapons. Stembridge suggested setting up an arsenal for the studio. Paramount subsidized the purchase of guns while Stembridge maintained and housed them. His first offices sat at 5451 Marathon Street. The industry called this operation the Gun Room.

• 2. A Private Arsenal Grows

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  Fritz Dickie managed the company from 1927 through 1974. Ed Stembridge joined the firm in 1933. By 1940 the business held 7,000 rifles and 1,200 revolvers. They also possessed 200 machine guns including Thompson M1921s and M1928s. This inventory made it one of the largest private arsenals in America. On the 7th of December 1941, Fritz Dickie received a call from the US Coast Guard. They needed the arsenal ready for a potential Japanese invasion after Pearl Harbor. The company loaned weapons to the California State Guard and California National Guard. Colonel W. W. Hicks signed a letter of thanks from the Harbor Defenses command. During early World War II years, the company improvised weapons before getting their original stock back. James Stembridge died in 1942 at age 72. Dickie and Ed Stembridge took over operations afterward.

• 3. Icons From The Gun Room

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  The firm supplied the Thompson submachine guns used to kill Sonny Corleone in The Godfather released in 1972. For the 1990 movie Dick Tracy they provided 25 Thompsons. Staff rebarreled, reblued, and reblanked all of them. A single Thompson appeared in Michael Jackson's music video Smooth Criminal. Jackson performed a 360-degree spin while firing off fifty rounds. When filming began on the 1992 biopic Chaplin, producers asked if they could supply a rifle similar to one Charlie Chaplin used in 1918. Stembridge had that specific gun on hand. It was the actual weapon Chaplin had used in Shoulder Arms. By the 1980s the firm held over 10,000 weapons including many of historical interest.

• 4. Fireable History And Blanks

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  Almost every gun in the collection remained fireable throughout its history. Displays included Matt Dillon's Colt single-action and Wyatt Earp's Colt Buntline. Bat Masterson's Colt Storekeeper and Paladin's double-barrel derringer also sat in the inventory. Two functional Gatling guns existed within the 7,000-gun collection in 1969. They kept two 17th-century German rifles including a matchlock and a wheellock. An 1850 palm pistol rounded out the rare items. The company manufactured 430,000 blank rounds per year. Nearly every US movie or television show showing a firearm firing came from this source. This operation continued until 2007 when the business closed its doors.

• 5. The Final Auction

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  A family estate settlement forced the sale of most assets before operations ended. Most of the remaining arsenal went to auction in 2007. As of 2008 the company still possessed 22 Thompson submachine guns. By 2013 nearly every movie made in Hollywood had been supplied by Stembridge Gun Rentals. What remained moved to Glendale by that same year. Syd Stembridge ran the final operations as the great-nephew of James. Most of the original arsenal eventually ended up at Independent Studio Services. The firm served the industry for roughly eighty-seven years.