Biographical History
Date 1930-2010
Robert Kerr was born and raised in Galt, Ontario, and as a young man he established and operated the printing company John Kerr and Son with his father.
Kerr was drawn to politics as a young man, and in 1964 became the youngest mayor in the history of the City of Galt. In 1975 he was elected mayor again, representing the City of Cambridge, which had recently been formed by the amalgamation of the towns of Galt, Preston, and Hespeler. He retired from that role in 1976 to devote himself full-time to work on IMAX.
IMAX corporation (originally named Omnimax, then IMAX Entertainment Limited, and finally IMAX Systems Corporation) emerged from large-screen and multiple-screen displays that Robert Kerr, Graeme Ferguson, and Roman Kroitor did at Montreal’s Expo 67. Together with engineer William Shaw, they developed a camera system that allowed for high-resolution images and enlarged projection. The Rolling Loop Projection System invented by Ron Jones allows the projection of 70mm film to create a projection area ten times the size of a standard projection area.
After debuting the IMAX film Tiger Child, dir. Donald Brittain, in 1970 at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, the IMAX format took off, and construction began on permanent IMAX theatres around the world.
Robert Kerr worked for IMAX from 1967 to 1994 as Chairman, then Chairman Emeritus and finally President and Chief Executive Officer.
IMAX received an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for technological innovation and excellence (1986), a Canada Export Award from the Department of External Affairs (1988) and an Award of Excellence for contributions to Canadian culture from the Department of Communications (1991). In 1997, IMAX received an additional Academy Award for scientific and technical achievement.
IMAX corporation was sold to a US investment group, WGIM Acquisition Corporation, in 1994. It was then restructured and merged with Trumbull Company Inc. Douglas Turnbull now serves as Vice Chariman of IMAX and President of its Ridefilm Division.
In Robert Kerr’s retirement he took an interest in local arts education, and in 1997 he endowed the University of Waterloo's Stanley Knowles Visiting Professorship in Canadian Studies and bestowed bursaries at all of the Cambridge high schools. In his later years he enjoyed spending time at the Lake of Bays, Ont., which Graeme Ferguson dubbed “Lake IMAX,” because he, Kerr and other IMAX founders kept cottages on the lake.