Instantaneously the actress proceeded to enlighten me upon the one
predominant and vital activity of my career. “You have disgraced me
in the eyes of Hollywood and New York,” she asserted; “that’s what
you have done. Did I ask to go into pictures? Not much! I had a big
reputation on the stage, and then--you come along! You tell me what
a future I have in pictures; you persuade me to leave New York and
go to California, and now here I am, disgraced, absolutely made a
laughing-stock----”
I took advantage of this, her first pause. “There, there,” murmured I,
fully conscious of the limitations of my soothing technique, “what’s
the matter?”
“Matter!” she stormed. “Everything’s the matter. Your photography’s
rotten--absolutely no good. And as for your director--say, haven’t I
been on the stage some years--oughtn’t I to know something about the
game? And am I to be told what’s what by Cecil de Mille?” Et cetera. Et
cetera.
The dinner cooled. Not so, Fanny. For fully half an hour the outraged
star poured into my ears the tale of her wrongs in that far-away
studio. Only my assurance that I would look at the film, which had
arrived simultaneously with her, succeeded in stemming the flood-gates.
I did look at it, and my impression was much more favourable than I
had hoped. It seemed to me that she had screened well and I wired
to De Mille and Lasky to ask a second opportunity for Fanny. When
I communicated this decision to Miss Ward she was so happy and so
grateful for my intervention that I felt quite reckless about any
financial outcome.
As it happened, however, the Lasky Company was not penalised for giving
Fanny her second chance. The next play we assigned her was “The Cheat.”
This film did four things. Its court scene where Fanny dramatically
exposed the brand on her shoulder established her as an eminent
artiste of the screen. It provided a wonderful vehicle for Sessue
Hayakawa, the Japanese pantomimist, whom we engaged then for the first
time, and was indeed responsible for the rapidity for his ascent to
fortune. It also brought Cecil de Mille to the front. And to the Lasky
Company it meant a first real “knockout” after a number of moderate
successes. Everybody talked about “The Cheat,” Fanny Ward, and Sessue.
While making this play Miss Ward was the victim of a studio accident
which provided the source of innocent merriment for the entire screen
colony in Hollywood. When the cry of “Camera” was given Miss Ward got
into action on a rustic bridge spanning a pool. She was attired in a
costly ermine coat, a plumed hat, and a Paris gown. Sustained by the
consciousness of these assets, as well as by her usual dramatic fervor,
she began to trip across the edifice. For a few moments the tripping
was good. Then suddenly there was a creak of boards. The creak was
followed by a loud ripping noise, the bridge fell, and a moment later
the camera, that remorseless Boswell, had recorded Fanny sitting in the
pool below.
It was a somewhat inglorious attitude for any heroine, and Fanny was
not slow to realise it. Sitting there in her soaked ermine coat with
her plumed hat all awry, she relieved her feelings in a manner highly
satisfactory both to herself and to those about her.
“At last,” commented one of her fellow actors, hearing this outburst of
indignation, “we have seen it--the lake of fire and brimstone.”
But it was only a moment after this that the victim was laughing quite
as heartily as the spectators. Indeed, among the various tempers which
I have looked over in my career as producer, Fanny Ward’s variety
comes nearest to the ideal recognised as “lovable.” Not only is her
anger short-lived, but it is accompanied by such warmth of heart and
generosity of spirit and it is followed so swiftly by her infectious
laugh that one never remembers her stormy moods except with an
affectionate smile.
Certainly her residence in Hollywood did much to dispel the horror
which the mere mention of California evoked in the minds of many
screen performers of that day. Into that former community with its few
shops and its unpretentious homes Fanny moved with a suggestion of
Eastern pomp. Having been married to a wealthy man and being therefore
independent of her salary, she took the largest house in Hollywood and
filled it with a fine blend of gold plate, servants, and bric-à-brac.
This home became the rendezvous of the picture-making colony. If you
entered it on Sunday afternoon you found that forty-nine people had
preceded you. No hostess could have been more delightful and gracious.
Whatever may be later sources of inspiration in motion-picture
festivities those at Fanny Ward’s did not wander far from childhood’s
happy hour. Once, I remember, a donkey-party was tendered. On this
occasion Eva Tanguay did everything she could to sustain a famous
self-characterisation. She did a bit of comedy work for which this
nonsensical game offers such wide scope, convulsing us all with the
innocent blundering she so well knows how to simulate.
There was one personal prejudice of Fanny’s which is recalled with
amusement by all those who used to be invited to those parties. No
matter what she served her guests at dinner--lobster, or quail, or
turkey--she herself always ate frankfurters. Furthermore, she liked a
mob scene of these “hot dogs,” and I can see her now as she sat before
one of her famous gold platters heaped high with the incongruous fare.
Every other type of refreshment at the Ward home sprang from an equally
liberal source. Witness to this fact is supplied by a dinner given by
Fanny just previous to a discussion arranged by the Lasky Company,
the Famous Players, and the Triangle Company with a view toward a
merger of these organisations. A representative of one of the two rival
companies sat beside me while a relentless hospitality was being waged.
At last he turned to me pleadingly.
“For Heaven’s sake,” he whispered, “I want a clear head for our talk.
Won’t you tell that butler to stop filling my glass?”
“Butler!” I whispered back, almost congealed with horror. “Sh! That’s
Miss Ward’s husband.”
This husband, by the way, was Jack Deane, her leading man, whom she
married after coming to Hollywood.
Fanny’s expenditures began at home, but they did not stay there. She
made the same opulent gesture in the studio. Thus I remember that
when Percy Hilburn, the cameraman who used to film her, threatened to
leave us because we would not raise his salary from one hundred to two
hundred a week, the actress made up the extra amount out of her own
purse.
“What,” she exclaimed, “have Percy leave the place while I am here! A
man that can make you look as beautiful as he does me!”
There was, of course, a great deal in what she said. For an expert
cameraman can be as flattering as a pink sunshade. However, Fanny was
dependent upon his ministrations.
Her sustained ability to look young was especially definite in “Heart’s
Ease,” a Bret Harte story in which she played a seventeen-year-old
part. As Fanny’s own daughter was at the time just about this same age,
newspapers everywhere saw the opportunity for much good-natured fun,
and it was after such far-flung propaganda that her close friend Nora
Bayes greeted her with a sally I have never forgotten.
The famous comédienne just mentioned was opening up on a certain night
in the Orpheum Theatre at Los Angeles. Fanny gave a large dinner that
night, including Charlie Chaplin, Marie Doro, and De Wolf Hopper, and
after the dinner she asked me if I would not drive into Los Angeles
with her to Nora’s opening. I did so, and before the comédienne’s
appearance Fanny took me back of the scenes. Nora came down the stairs
to greet us and when she caught sight of her friend she cried, “Why,
Fanny Ward, I expected to find you with a rattle in your hand!”
For several years Fanny’s screen popularity continued. Then quite
gradually she began to go under an eclipse. Why was it? Perhaps she
may not have forgotten the proper dramatic mediums. More probably the
public failed in its former response to her type of acting. Be that
as it may, this decline in popularity--so tragically familiar in the
motion-picture world--left Fanny behind us, a pleasant memory. However,
the Lasky Company had always prided itself on fidelity to contract, and
we did not depart from this standard in our dealings with Miss Ward. It
was she who finally severed our business relations.
I have dwelt upon the career of Fanny Ward at this length, not only
because hers is one of the vivid and lovable personalities in the
screen world, but because the social atmosphere which she created forms
a cherished background for the recollections of many a screen star.
To-day if you find yourself in a crowd where Mae Murray, Tommy Meighan,
Mabel Normand, and other famous stars are gathered together, you are
sure to hear, “Oh, do you remember that evening at Fanny’s when she did
so and so?”
_Chapter Five_
MARGUERITE CLARK MISSES FIRE AND EDNA GOODRICH DOESN’T IGNITE AT ALL
Meanwhile, of course, I had been negotiating with various other stars.
Among this number was Marguerite Clark. Miss Clark, you remember, had
stirred the public deeply by her beautiful performance in “Prunella,”
and this success of the speaking stage resulted in a competition
between Mr. Zukor and ourselves for her services on the screen. Our
final compromise indicates how ably we lived up to the friendly-enemy
ideal of conduct.
“See here,” called Mr. Zukor over the phone, “I hear you’re negotiating
with Marguerite Clark. Now I want to tell you something. I’m going to
get her, no matter what I have to pay. So you’ll do me a favor if you
don’t bid me up any higher.”
I agreed to withdraw, but upon one condition only. The Lasky Company
had just secured the rights to Harold McGrath’s “The Goose Girl,” and
we had been thinking for some time that Marguerite would be ideal for
the part. My final understanding with my competitor accordingly was
that he should lend us the coveted star for this single picture. In
this arrangement, however, we reckoned without Marguerite herself.
“What, Marguerite go all the way out to California!” exclaimed the
star’s sister when I called at the Clark apartment that first evening.
An Astor or a Vanderbilt ordered to go out and hoe potatoes, a Russian
nobleman sentenced to Siberia--neither of these could have expressed
more profound emotion. Nor was the prejudice of Miss Clark’s sister an
isolated one. I quote this exclamation, indeed, as significant of an
almost universal obstacle I encountered in those early days. Stars did
not want to leave New York for California.
I soon suspected that in Marguerite’s case the prejudice was a more
deep-seated one than could be explained by climate or landscape.
The very morning after she agreed to go out to the Lasky studios a
young man in the employ of Mr. Zukor came to my office. His name was
Harold Lockwood and he will be remembered for his work in some of Mary
Pickford’s earlier stories, and later as a famous star for the Metro
Company.
After a little preliminary clearing of his throat the handsome Harold
suggested the purpose of his call. “Ahem,” began he, “I hear you’ve
engaged Miss Clark to do a picture for you?”
“Yes, yes, so I have,” retorted I, leafing over a pamphlet.
More pronounced symptoms of nervousness by Harold before he could
proceed. “Ahem--well--I just thought--of course you may not be looking
for anybody--but----”
We did not take advantage of Harold’s willingness to share Miss Clark’s
banishment, but there are numerous parallel situations where we found
the pressure more forceful. Sometimes, in fact, we have been obliged
to take a constellation in order to secure the services of the one
particular star which graced it. Our engagement of Blanche Sweet, of
Pauline Frederick, and later experiences with Geraldine Farrar--these
episodes to which I am coming presently--reveal the extent to which
some emotional preference influences the contract of the feminine star.
Well, Miss Clark did go to California and she made for the Lasky
Company its successful play of “The Goose Girl.” The performance was
not, however, devoid of friction. From the studio across the continent
to my office in New York came constant mutterings of disagreements
between Miss Clark and her director, Fred Thompson. Once I wired to De
Mille to ask him how the play was coming along, and his answer to the
telegram was as follows:
“Don’t know much about the play, but geese and photography both looked
great.”
I have mentioned that Marguerite’s sister met me that evening I went
up to her apartment. This sister, who was some years older than her
celebrated relative, was almost as constant a phenomenon as was Mary
Pickford’s mother. Indeed, many feminine luminaries of the screen
possess one of these adhesive relatives. There is nearly always a
mother or brother or sister or husband standing around back of the
screens to see that justice is administered.
There was one time when Mary Pickford’s supremacy was seriously
threatened by the success of this other Famous Players’ star. “Is Mary
jealous of Marguerite?” I asked Mr. Zukor at this period.
He shook his head. “No,” said he. And then he added swiftly, “But it
comes to the surface through Mrs. Pickford and Marguerite’s sister.”
From this remark I gathered that the two doughty supporters of opposing
causes used to look at each other about as pleasantly as did the
Montagues and Capulets. And if you possess any flair, like Landor, for
imaginary conversations, you can easily construct a dialogue between
the twain based on their respective claims to the most mail, the most
unappeasable demands of exhibitors, the most appreciation from Mr.
Zukor.
Yet Mary long outlasted her fair rival. Why was this? Marguerite Clark
was beautiful, she was exquisitely graceful, and she brought to the
screen a more finished stage technique and a more spacious background
than did Miss Pickford. My answer to this question, so often propounded
to me, applies not only to Miss Clark, but to all the other actresses
who have flashed, meteor-like, across the screen horizon. First of all,
she did not have Mary Pickford’s absorbing passion for work. Secondly,
she did not possess the other artiste’s capacity for portraying
fundamental human emotion. Simple and direct and poignant, Mary goes to
the heart much as does a Foster melody. Herein is the real success of a
popularity so phenomenally sustained.
Previous to engaging Miss Ward and Miss Clark, the Lasky Company had
secured the services of Blanche Sweet. The performance of this actress
in Griffith’s “Judith and Bethulia” had lingered in my memory, and
almost as soon as we organized I took Lasky to see that film. He was so
much impressed that we wired at once to De Mille to negotiate with Miss
Sweet, then working under Mr. Griffith in California.
From the first she did not seem satisfied with her new environment.
After some days, in fact, she came to me and begged that she be allowed
to leave us. She wanted to go back to New York.
[Illustration: CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG
Easily the screen’s most beautiful brunette, and whose eyes are known
the world over.]
[Illustration: MR. GOLDWYN ACTING AS HOST AND WAITER
John Bowers, Molly Malone and Will Rogers at the table. Chaplin is
serving root beer.]
“But why?” I pressed her.
After some hesitancy she finally confided the reason of her unrest.
Marshall Neilan, whom I have mentioned as playing with Mary Pickford,
had been unable to find work in Los Angeles and was taking the train
back East the very next day. The result of this conversation was that
I sent for Mr. Neilan, and so impressed was I by his intelligence that
I engaged him as a director at two hundred and fifty dollars a week.
His success was marked from the first and I have already indicated his
rapid ascent to fortune.
As to Blanche, who eight years later became Mrs. Marshall Neilan, it
was not until she began to work under Mr. Neilan’s direction that she
justified our expectations of her. I shall never, indeed, forget my
disappointment at seeing her first Lasky film.
“What!” thought I. “Can this be the same girl who was so effective in
that Griffith picture?”
It was my introduction to a recurrent tragedy in my career as producer.
Various times I have been attracted by Griffith successes only to find
that they could not thrive in another environment. Just like Trilby
when no longer confronted by the hypnotic baton of Svengali, so many of
the men and women who have worked under Mr. Griffith can not perform
when deprived of his inspiring force.
Meanwhile the Lasky Company had been expanding tremendously. Like an
octopus it clutched at all the landscape available in the vicinity of
the original livery-stable. New buildings kept going up. New people
were being added. So swift was the pace of progress that De Mille’s
brother William, whom we had sent out meanwhile as a scenario-writer,
frequently voiced his leading plaint. He liked to work by himself in
a little building away out in a field, but to save his life he could
not move that little building fast enough. “I wake up in the morning
after I’ve just staked a fresh claim,” he used to say, “and the doggone
studio has caught up with me in the night!”
A tremendous impetus was given to both Mr. Zukor and the Lasky Company
by an organisation of the distributers who had been handling our
films. About six months after Lasky and I went into business these
functionaries decided that in order to make themselves a real force
they would have to guarantee to theatrical managers throughout the
country a larger number of pictures. Their organization, under the name
of the Paramount Pictures Corporation, requisitioned one hundred and
four films a year, of which our company agreed to supply thirty-six.
As this was just three times the number we had planned to produce,
you will see the urgency of growth. It is equally evident why our
capitalisation now increased from the original twenty thousand to two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
But the domestic market by no means exhausted our outlet. Always I have
been penetrated by a sense of international possibilities in the film
industry. That this Esperanto of the stage could be communicated to
foreign countries--here was the idea which in the early Summer of 1914
sent me speeding to Europe.
I was interested in placing not Lasky products alone, for before
my departure Mr. Zukor had asked me if I would not look after his
interests also.
Until this time we had engaged in no concentrated drive of the sort.
For, although Mr. Zukor had a representative in London, the agency
waged only a haphazard, picture-by-picture campaign. Nor was my first
important interview pregnant with hope of more systematic sales.
Great Britain had always been active in picture-production and her
leading distributer was William Jury, who has since been knighted. Mr.
Zukor’s London representative arranged my meeting with this personage,
and from almost the minute I began talking to him I saw that Mr. Jury
believed that Britannia rules the films as well as the waves. After
he had listened to my enthusiastic praise of both Zukor and Lasky
products, he told me that no American company could possibly be as
great as I said we were going to be. To this I retorted that no one
so lacking in confidence in a product could possibly be able to sell
it. Having thus clarified our views, Mr. Jury and I parted. Almost
immediately afterward I helped finance Mr. J. D. Walker to handle both
Famous Players and Lasky Films in Great Britain. Under my contract
with him he was to take the output of both studios and to pay us ten
thousand dollars advance against sixty-five per cent. gross.
After this my progress was comparatively easy. Sweden, Norway, and
Denmark promised to buy all the pictures we made at something in the
neighbourhood of three thousand dollars each. I closed a deal with
Australia guaranteeing to take our complete output at thirty-five
hundred dollars a film; Germany put in the same large order at an even
higher rate--four thousand each; Belgium and Switzerland contributed
their quota, and although France represented our poorest customer, even
she did not withhold her mite.
Is it any wonder that as I rode from Berlin to Paris my head reeled
with the magnitude of our success? Could this really be I, the poor boy
who a short time before had wandered over these very countries with
hardly a sou in his pocket?
Yet mine was no miracle of success. I traveled in Europe day and
night. I pitted all my enthusiasm against many citadels of prejudice
and scepticism. When, indeed, I finally sailed from Liverpool I was
physically prostrated by the long strain of it all.
Even the triumph which I have just chronicled was doomed to only a
partial realisation. I could not anticipate, of course, on that Summer
day when, riding from Berlin to Paris, I counted up my thousands, that
in a few short weeks a bomb would explode in Sarajevo which would
change the map and the psychology and the industrial conditions of the
whole world. And I certainly could not foresee, therefore, the broken
contracts and the difficulty of obtaining ships to fulfil contracts
which followed the declaration of war.
While in Europe I was constantly on the lookout for actors, and one of
the results of my search was Edna Goodrich. Miss Goodrich had three
assets at this time. She was beautiful; she had created a sensation on
the London stage, and she had recently joined the famous recessional of
wives of the late Nat Goodwin. Eventually Miss Goodrich made a picture
for us at five thousand dollars, with the understanding that if it were
successful we should have the first option on her second venture.
Too bad for Miss Goodrich! Too bad for the Lasky Company! Almost the
minute De Mille started to work with her he wired me, “Goodrich too
cold.”
In the film world this is an epitaph. Nor did Miss Goodrich live down
her obituary. Time refused to thaw her, and I was then initiated into
the profound truth that many an actress whom individuality of voice
and beauty of colouring render glowing on the stage are absolutely
calcimined by the camera.
However, my interview with Miss Goodrich resulted profitably in
another way. While dining with her at the Carlton in London I was
introduced to a tall, broad-shouldered, manly-looking chap with a mop
of chestnut-brown curls. From the moment that I saw him I was struck
with Tommy Meighan’s possibilities for the screen, and when he came to
America I wired Lasky to look him over. We engaged him, and Tommy went
to California to make his first picture, “The Fighting Hope.”
“Tommy no good”; this was the telephoned verdict which De Mille
rendered after this initial performance. I was then in San Francisco,
and when I arrived in Los Angeles the defendant got to me before the
prosecutor.
“See here,” announced Tommy ruefully, “they say I’m no good around this
place, so I guess I’ll clear out. The Universal has made me an offer,
anyhow.”
“Do nothing of the sort,” I commanded. “Wait until I see your picture
first.”
My view of that picture convinced me that our chief director’s opinion
had been conceived too hastily. And the outcome of my intercession was
a very distinct gain. A year or so planted this star on terra firma.
To-day he is one of the most popular actors of the screen.
All this happened in 1914. The next year was one especially significant
in motion-picture circles. Among the events contributing to its
impressiveness was that Titanic conception of the silver-sheet, “The
Birth of a Nation.” This Griffith picture which, by the way, was the
first screen performance where two dollars a seat was asked, might also
have been called “The Birth of Numerous Stars.” Mae Marsh, the Gish
girls, perhaps a dozen luminaries who have since flashed across the
public consciousness, owe their success to parts in the giant canvas.
It was during this year that De Mille and I went to a dinner given to
Raymond Hitchcock, at Levy’s Café in Los Angeles. We were half-way
through when we were attracted simultaneously by a young man who had
just sat down at an adjacent table. One look at the clear-cut face and
we exclaimed in unison, “Isn’t he attractive! Wouldn’t he be wonderful
in pictures!”