LEFT: George Singleton. Photograph Scottish Screen Archive Collection.
RIGHT: Mr. Cosmo. The Alan Dalzell Collection.

Known by many as Mr. Cosmo, George Singleton was one of the foremost film exhibitors in Scotland. Singleton was born on 1 January 1900 in Main Street, Bridgeton. He was the son of Richard Singleton, a printer by trade and part-time cinema pianist and film exhibitor who in 1910 bought an old Masonic Hall at Burnbank, Hamilton to show films. It was here that the young Singleton first became interested in cinema, taking great pride in the fact that he could do just about any job there, from selling sweets and taking tickets to playing the piano accompaniment for the silent films.

After five years as a apprentice printer, Singleton decided that he wanted to go into the cinema business full time which he did in 1920 when he opened The Paragon, a former United Free Church in the Gorbals. The Paragon used the original wooden pews as seating, saving the expense of installing seats, and providing flexible seating as former projectionist Peter Douglas explained, "seating capacity was reached when someone fell off the end, which meant that if you had a lot of fat people in, the seating capacity went down!"

In 1936/7 the original Singleton circuit of cinemas was sold to Oscar Deutsch, keen to establish a presence for his Odeon chain in Scotland by buying existing cinemas - the proceeds from the sale allowed Singleton to work without partners and create a new chain of super cinemas including Vogues in Riddrie, Possil and George Singleton's own personal favourite, the magnificent Vogue in Govan, designed by James McKissack and opened in 1938.