|
Movie Profiles & Premiums Vol. 4 Num. 12
|
Cliff Aliperti
|
Dec 14, 2006 22:23 PST
|
This is the plain text version of the newsletter. Read this online in
html format and loaded with pictures of movie collectibles at:
http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/issues/movie-newsletter-04-12.htm
#
Welcome back! This issue will be brief on the chatter, though deep on
features as I took the day off from my eBay listings in order to put
together a couple of new Photo ID Guides.
I am going to plug the new store here, it's old-magazines-for-sale.com,
which does, of course, feature hundreds of movie collectibles. Just
choose the movie lane at the upper left corner of the page to get
started!
http://www.old-magazines-for-sale.com/
#
Following are the links to the newest features on the site, all posted
today:
Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the Silent Collection by Tammy Stone
http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/douglas-fairbanks-sr.htm
(Also found complete at the bottom of this issue)
along with the
1924 Glorias del Cine Series E Photo ID Guide
http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/ephemera/1924-glorias-del-cine.htm
and
1920's P&J Cadenazzi Caramel Cards Photo ID Guide
http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/ephemera/1920s-p-j-cadenazzi.htm
Cards from those two sets are currently available for immediate purchase
in the Movie Lane of my eBay Store --> http://tinyurl.com/ynbev8
#
Also I picked up the Criterion Collection release of Pandora's Box
starring Louise Brooks and did a pre-review -- in other words, I created
an entry for my Classic DVD List before actually watching it because I
was so excited at how much the set contained! Though the page is
already out of date because I have already watched it all once, it may
help you out if you're wondering what exactly you get for your money on
this one:
http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/dvd-list/pandoras-box.htm
#
We kick off Volume 5 of the newsletter next issue which should be sent
right around January 15. In the meantime, Merry Christmas, Happy
Holidays and a Happy New Year to all!
#
Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in The Silent Collection
by Tammy Stone
Simply put, the Fairbanks clan comes as close to vintage Hollywood
royalty as it gets. Before the Barrymores, before the Hustons – even
before Hollywood and the studio system – one man came blazing into the
hearts and minds of the American public. Douglas Fairbanks was a legend
in his own time, a self-made man who, within a few years, became the
top-grossing entertainer of the young movie industry, and one half of
what arguably remains the most powerful cinematic duo of all time.
Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ulman on May 23, 1883 in Denver,
Colorado. His father Hezekiah, a New York lawyer, left his former wife
and two daughters to pursue business interests in Denver – with another
woman, Ella Adelaide Marsh Weeks, whose former husband was named John
Fairbanks (stay with me!). Ulman, who had helped Ella with her late
husband’s legal affairs at his time of death (and provided her with
council during her troubled second marriage), eventually married Ella
and they had two sons, Robert and Douglas.
As if this wasn’t drama-laden enough, it turns out that this was a very
turbulent marriage. First off, Ulman and Ella never officially married,
so their sons were illegitimate. Second, Ulman was Jewish, and Ella told
her sons never to reveal this side of their background to anyone – which
Douglas, at least, never did.
The years passed, and Ulman was a big devotee of the theatre, to which
he would attend with his sons no matter how far they had to travel.
Because of this, the young Douglas virtually grew up with the stage. He
would also accompany his dad on mining trips, where he developed his
more rambunctious, athletic and pioneering sides. But life was not one
big adventure like it was in his future movies: Ulman was a very heavy
drinker and this only got worse as his business prospects – especially
in mining – diminished. He soon took off to New York, leaving his new
family behind. While in New York, he began working on Benjamin
Harrison’s presidential campaign, and that was the last Denver saw of
Ulman. Douglas was five years old.
The family was destitute. Ella was left with both Douglas and Robert,
and her oldest son, John Fairbanks, from her first marriage. The first
thing she did was change her two younger sons’ last name to Fairbanks,
probably more to erase the legacy of Ulman than anything else. But she
was also aware that Fairbanks, in those days, was a name with clout.
Soon, for Douglas, the theatre came calling. He started performing on
the Denver stage and by the time he got into his late teens, he was an
actor very much in demand. He dropped out of high school and never
returned to academia, despite later claims that he attended college.
It was 1900 – Douglas was 17 – when he moved to New York to pursue is
dreams of acting on the stage. Two years later he landed a role in “The
Duke’s Jester” on Broadway. Yet, this wasn’t a starring role, and fame
didn’t come to him immediately. Luckily he had an extraordinary work
ethic, and wasn’t afraid of working odd jobs until his stage career
started to take off. He worked like this for a few years; meanwhile, on
a personal front, he found the first love of his life and married Anna
Beth Sully in 1907. She came from money, and her father wanted Douglas
to work for the family company rather that try to forge a career in the
less reputable world of acting. For a time, Douglas assented, and began
working for the Buchanan Soap Company. This lasted an entirety of six
months (the company, fortuitously for Douglas, soon folded). In 1909,
his son (the now legendary Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) was born, and his
father was already back on stage at this time. His marriage, due to a
lack of a substantial income, was strained.
By this time, around 1910, the movies had been around for around 15
years, and were beginning to attract audience fanaticism. Broadway
actors (then as now) looked down on this ephemeral entertainment form,
but at the same time, there was a real need for motion picture actors,
and many companies were coming to New York to look for their future
stars. Douglas was offered $104,000 by the Triangle Film Corporation in
1914, a then-enormous sum he couldn’t refuse. A year later, his family
packed up and moved to Hollywood.
Douglas was 31 at the time, much older than many of his beers breaking
into the business. But he was definitely in the right place at the right
time; his new mentor was D.W. Griffith, the highly innovative director
who later, in academic circles, became known as “the grandfather of the
close-up.” Griffith wasn’t entirely sure Douglas was cut out for the
pictures, but he began to appear in some films, and fans almost
immediately took to his comedic talents. Suddenly, Douglas found himself
traveling in circles that included Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and
Charlie Chaplin. Not bad for a lad from Denver! Some of his early films
included the mostly forgotten: Double Trouble (1915); The Habit of
Happiness and American Aristocracy (1916); Down to Earth (1917); Bound
in Morocco (1918); and When the Clouds Roll By (1919). The trick was
quantity rather than quality here; movies were being churned out in
rapid-fire succession, and Douglas was quickly becoming a feature player
dabbling in every genre.
1916 was a particularly lucrative year for him, and as a man raised by
businessmen, he had the savvy to start his own production company, for
which he produced films he thought would capitalize on his talents: he
called it The Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corporation, and operated it
under the Paramount umbrella. Audiences came to his films –
light-hearted escapism during WWI – in droves.
In 1918, Douglas went on a Liberty Loan Bond Drive tour – as part of his
involvement in the war effort – with Charlie Chaplin, and it was during
this time that he had his fateful meeting with the then First Lady of
the screen, the lovely, Canadian-born Mary Pickford. For two year they
kept their relationship a secret, as both of them were married and their
fans would be horrified by their images being tarnished in this way. But
in 1919, he formed United Artists with Mary, Chaplin and Griffith
(interestingly, after folding mid-century, United Artists is now being
revived by none other than Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes).
With United Artists, the founders wanted to bring more independent films
by artists they respected, to the public, and thereby circumvent the
studio system. This wasn’t a popular idea with everyone, but it was
influential, it worked, and it drew enormous amounts of talent both
behind and in front of the screen away from the moguls who then ran
Hollywood. The movies were, thanks to them, becoming artful in America
the way they already becoming in Europe.
In 1920, Douglas and Mary divorced their spouses and married each other.
Douglas made the enormous popular film The Mark of Zorro, his very first
film as an adventure superhero. It was a hit of epic proportions, and
led to his making more films of this kind, including The Three
Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922) and Don Q – Son of Zorro (1925). In
1926, he made his legendary swashbuckling hit The Black Pirate, also an
historical film in that it was the first film made using Technicolor’s
then brand-new two-tone negative process (the precursor to the process
that dominated Hollywood colour cinema for around two decades beginning
in 1937).
This era marked the height of his fame. But he was already 43 when he
made The Black Pirate, and he knew he couldn’t continue to play these
roles forever. He began to set his sites even more on the business side
of things. He became an advocate of sound films, and also founded the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences (and was its first
president), and he and Mary were the first to cement their hands at the
then-new Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. He also made
some films, including some notable successes, such as The Gaucho (1927)
and The Iron Mask (1928), though they clearly showed a man ravaged both
by time and the real events going on his life. In 1929, he and Mary made
their first film together – Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew – but it
didn’t do well at all, and caused a lot of rife between the couple.
By the early 1930s, Douglas’s son had risen to fame and Douglas and Mary
had become distant memories to the new generation of stars and fans
alike. They had championed art film and real cinematic innovation, and
lowest-common-denominator genre fare had taken over (sound familiar?).
They were trailblazers in a world that now demanded conformity. Their
time had passed.
Douglas had become a writer (he’d published around five books), and at
this stage in his life he began to travel extensively – he made several
travelogues chronicling his adventures. It was 1933 when he and Mary
officially retired from the business, and they divorced soon after. He
then, after making one more film in 1934 (for Alexander Korda, The
Private Life of Don Juan), married his mistress Lady Sylvia Ashley
(before she divorced him and married Clark Gable).
Douglas died on December 12, 1939 in California of a heart attack. He
was 56. With him, an era truly ended, one he had helped to found,
cultivate and turn into lore. When he entered cinema, short films were
reaching millions of people at a seemingly astonishing rate. Thanks to
Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and his colleagues, the movies were able to turn
into an artistic form. It is almost impossible not to think of the work
Douglas put into creating the fascinating world of moving images we
continue to consume and appreciate today.
#
Tammy Stone is a freelance writer and journalist based in Toronto. Watch
for her regular column on the greats of the Silent Screen in each issue
of The Movie Profiles & Premiums Newsletter. Tammy invites you to write
her at tammyst-@yahoo.ca with any questions or comments on her
column.
#
Unsubscribe simply by sending a blank e-mail to:
things-and-other--@topica.com
|
|
 |
|
