Chronicles of Old Los Angeles
Page 7
DeMille arrived in Hollywood with his troupe of New York actors to make the world’s first feature film, The Squaw Man, a serious story about soldiers and Indians. But in 1913, there were no Native Americans left in LA. So, just like on Broadway, his actors applied greasepaint to look like Native Americans; but unlike Broadway, the greasepaint dried and cracked outdoors in the California sun. DeMille’s next step is immortalized in a song lyric by Johnny Mercer decades later:
… To be an actor, see Mr. Factor.
He’ll make your kisser look good.
… Hooray for Hollywood!
DeMille needed Factor’s make-up, but his tight-fisted producer back in New York had no budget item for make-up, and no time for experiments. In the theater, actors provided their own make-up and applied it, too. Now DeMille was horrified when he peered through the lens. His actors looked comical, encrusted in stage make-up, wearing theatrical wigs made from wool and straw!
So Factor made a deal. The script required Indians. Factor, now the father of five, would provide his two young sons, painted as Indians, for the duration of the film shoot along with the much needed make-up. DeMille’s payment to the young actors would include the cost of the flexible greasepaint supply.
Then Factor threw in another bargain: real human hair. Give up the phony stage wigs that were a distraction on film. Use the real wigs that Factor stitched himself. Again DeMille pleaded poverty; the producer wouldn’t pay for Factor’s authentic wigs. Their next decision set a Hollywood paradigm. Factor agreed to accept rent for his costly wigs (spawning an entire industry of rental products for filmmakers that still thrives a century later). With sons in the cast, the Factors kept an eye on their properties, and filming began. Upon its release, The Squaw Man was an immediate success, not just the first feature film in history, but also the first film to feature real hairpieces. From that day forward, Max Factor’s hair department had all the business it could handle. His two sons would also be hired to play Indians in over one hundred Westerns!
Factor and Hollywood were in sync. As film technology advanced, Factor continued to innovate. As he later commented, “I realized that a new art of make-up must be created just as a new form of entertainment was being evolved.” Years before the first color film, he devised a “Color Harmony” principle: Certain combinations of hair and eye colors looked best in make up shades of the same color. By referring to his goods as cosmetics, not make-up, his products shed the tawdry, painted lady connotation. Instead, Factor convinced women that there was nothing wrong with embellishing one’s physical gifts.
As new movie studios opened, everyone clamored for the pliant products that only Mr. Factor seemed to know how to make. Studios offered him full-time employment, but Factor wisely avoided favoritism; he sold cosmetics to everyone. He sold more cosmetics than all of his competitors combined! While his new wife and (now six) children ran the shop, Factor trained make-up artists to work at the studios, and continued to experiment with new products as demands from those studios increased.
For the 1925 version of Ben Hur, MGM ordered 600 gallons of Factor’s flexible greasepaint. The invention of sensitive panchromatic film required an entire line of new products from Factor: a wider range of tints in an even thinner, more transparent application to make complexions look natural on the big screen. With each innovation, his fortune grew.
In 1928, Factor made the deal that almost single-handedly launched the retail cosmetics industry in America. He authorized Sales Builders Inc. to advertise and distribute his cosmetics in drug stores nationwide. Based on the Color Harmony principle, they put powder, rouge and lipstick in one package for every combination of hair and eye color. Moving away from greasepaint in tubes, his newest cosmetics came in a tiny pan. Inside was a little cake of make-up that was applied with a sponge. Factor’s “pan-cake” make-up was revolutionary, giving birth to the industry we know today.
From left: Max Factor Building, the “Jewel Box of the Cosmetic World,” 1660 North Highland Ave., Hollywood, c. 1930s; pancake makeup advertisement with Judy Garland, 1940s
At Max Factor’s salon, 1935
That same year, Factor made an even greater commitment to Hollywood. He purchased a building right off Hollywood Boulevard (1660 North Highland Avenue, it’s today’s Hollywood Museum) where his business expanded exponentially. It was the first building to feature mirrors ringed with lights to simulate the high intensity lighting on movie sets. There was an entire floor just for lipsticks (another Factor invention. Before Factor, lip color was a pomade applied from a little tin), a floor just for powders, and another just for wigs and hair care. Best of all, the ground floor featured Factor’s Color Harmony rooms: Patrons were ushered into a blue, pink, peach or green room to determine the accurate shades that flattered them most.
For the grand opening of Max Factor’s salon in November 1935, 3,500 were invited, but more than 10,000 well-wishers showed up! Seemingly, everyone in show business wanted to toast Max Factor, the Hollywood original. Every studio boss and movie star was in attendance. Klieg lights crisscrossed the night sky. Gossip columnists and newsreel cameras captured the proceedings, later proclaiming the event to be bigger than most movie premieres. That night, the former peasant became the prince of Hollywood.
Max Factor lived for another 10 years, with all members of his family participating in the family business. Upon his death in 1938, son Frank changed his name to Max Factor Jr. and continued the family’s business and dynasty. Trust funds of five million dollars apiece were bequeathed to each of Max Factor’s grandchildren. In 1973, his heirs sold the company for $500 million dollars.
Max Factor is remembered with a star on the Walk of Fame at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard. He is buried at Hillside Memorial Cemetery, at 6001 West Centinela Avenue.
IN THE MOVIES:
Max Factor’s name appears in the credits for thousands of movies and television shows. Most often, it was actually Max Factor products applied by a Max Factor-trained make-up artist who was present for day-to-day filming.
The interior of the Max Factor building on Highland Avenue can be seen in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987).
THE FIRST SOUNDS: AL JOLSON AND THE WARNER BROTHERS
Harry, Sam, Albert and Jack Warner ran what was perceived to be a second-rate production company. Under contract, they had no outstanding comedian like Charlie Chaplin, no sweetheart like Mary Pickford; they had no money for an epic like Birth of a Nation. Their fortunes rested on one heroic dog: Rin Tin Tin. Their company was chronically low on cash. Drastic action was needed if the Warners were going to catapult their studio among the major players.
The fledgling movie industry inspired dreamers with all sorts of unique ideas to sell. More than one inventor attempted to sync a soundtrack to a movie, but each one failed to convince the studio chiefs that the expense was warranted. “Who the heck wants to hear actors talk?” was Harry Warner’s famous retort when the idea was presented to the Warner brothers.
Younger brother Sam realized the sound gimmick was exactly the jolt their company needed. Don’t want to hear actors talk? Then let them sing. Hollywood’s first sound film would also be its first musical. Even Harry approved of that scheme.
The Jazz Singer was a hit show on Broadway starring George Jessel. Warner Brothers acquired the rights, but Jessel turned down the offer to act on film. The role went to Al Jolson, a wise choice, as his life mirrored some of the plot. In the movie, the son of a Jewish cantor wants to sing popular music, but his family wants him to be a cantor. In the dramatic conclusion, the young guy skips his Broadway opening to sing in the synagogue.
From left: Sam, Harry, Jack and Albert Warner, 1926
For the popular music sequences, Jolson performed parts of his stage routine. Right before launching into his big hit, “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” Jolson adlibbed, “Wait a minute … wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” The talkies were born.
First talking movie, The Jazz Singer at Warners’ Theatre, 1927
The Warner brothers were all in: The project cost them half a million dollars, but their gamble on this new Vitaphone process from Western Electric catapulted them to the glory they sought. Their company pioneered the process for sound in the movies, paving the way for boundless innovation. The Jazz Singer would reap three million dollars that year, plus a place in history for the Warner brothers.
Opening night was scheduled for October 6, 1927 at the Warners’ Theatre in New York City, but tragedy struck. Sam Warner, the brother who fostered the sound process, was overworked in the weeks leading up to the film’s completion. An infection had spread through his body, unattended. On October 5, he was hospitalized. As surgeons attempted to remove a brain abscess complicated by pneumonia, Sam Warner died on the operating table. The mentor didn’t live to see his success. In an eerie reenactment of their own movie, the Warner brothers skipped their big opening night on Broadway to mourn their loss in a synagogue. At the movie premiere, when “The End” flashed across the screen, the audience rose in wild applause. It was Jolson, with tears in his eyes, who took a bow for all of them.
Five bigger movie studios controlled a majority of the nation’s theaters. They attempted to block the expansion of talkies at first, but the Warner brothers were prepared. The studio released 12 talking pictures in 1928 alone. The overwhelming enthusiasm from the paying public informed all studios of the movie industry’s inevitable future. Finally convinced that sound was here to stay, other studios made deals with Western Electric to make films with sound. An estimated 1000 movie theaters were wired for sound presentations by the end of 1928. At the very first Academy Awards ceremony, the Warner brothers were recognized for “revolutionizing the industry with sound.”
Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer
At the studio, youngest brother Jack assumed control of operations, gaining notoriety for decisive actions and stern demeanor. By the 1930s, he had Warner Brothers producing more than 100 movies a year. His career continued for 45 years, outlasting every other studio mogul. Firing studio employees became one of his trademarks. In fact, in 1929, one of the first movie stars Jack fired was Rin Tin Tin. After all, who the heck wants to hear a dog bark?
ON THE WALK OF FAME:
Sam Warner: 6201 Hollywood Boulevard
Harry Warner: 6441 Hollywood Boulevard
Jack Warner: 6541 Hollywood Boulevard
Al Jolson: 6622 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures)
1716 Vine Street (for recordings)
6201 Hollywood Boulevard (for radio)
THE FIRST ANIMATOR: WALT DISNEY
In Kansas City, Missouri, 18-year-old Walt Disney read a book by Edwin G. Lutz called Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development. The high school dropout would do it by the book. Experimenting with his friend and fellow cartoonist Ub Iwerks, they borrowed a camera, then drew characters on transparent sheets of celluloid they then photographed frame-by-frame over a stationary background. Disney and Iwerks liked what they saw.
Soon they were business partners at Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists, delivering a steady supply of Laugh-O-Gram cartoons to a Kansas City movie theater. The shorts were a success, but Disney and Iwerks were artists, not accountants. Their company soon went bankrupt.
Penniless, Walt Disney came to Los Angeles to visit his brother Roy, who was recuperating from tuberculosis in the veteran’s hospital. Setting his sights on the fledgling film industry, Walt decided to stay. With Roy’s help, he set up shop in a garage, then promptly made a deal to deliver Alice’s Wonderland, his new cartoon, every month to New York distributor Margaret Winkler. He hired his good friend Ub Iwerks, who relocated his family to LA, and the two were in business again.
Disney Studio’s staff, with Lois Hardwick who played the title character in the Alice Comedies. Top row: Walker Harman, Ub Iwerks, Lois Hardwick, Walt Disney, Rudolph Ising; bottom row: Friz Freleng, Roy O. Disney, Hugh Harman, 1927
The Alice cartoons were such a success that they hired more artists, including Lillian Bounds, the future Mrs. Disney, and expanded the operation (on Hyperion Avenue in today’s Silver Lake neighborhood). Disney and Iwerks created another character: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, also distributed by Margaret Winkler, which was an even bigger hit. Disney and Iwerks made 26 Oswald cartoons.
From left: Alice’s Wonderland, 1923; Oswald the Lucky Rabbit-Trolley Troubles, 1927
When Ms. Winkler got married, her husband promptly took charge of her affairs. He informed Disney that Universal Studios now controlled the rights to Oswald. Its animators could make the cartoons without Walt, so he’d have to take a pay cut or give up Oswald.
It was the turning point in Walt’s career. Instead of working for others, he needed to work for himself, with a product that only he controlled and distributed. Reluctantly, he gave up the rabbit. He would start over. What he needed first was a new character. It would be a mouse.
It was October 1927; The Jazz Singer was being hailed as the first “talkie.” Twenty-six year-old Disney understood the industry’s rapid evolution; he jumped aboard. Disney’s new mouse would be the first animated character with a soundtrack.
Iwerks made some final fixes to Disney’s original sketch, and Mortimer Mouse was born. Lillian Disney thought that “Mortimer” sounded “too highfalutin” for a cartoon mouse, so at her suggestion Walt renamed his character “Mickey Mouse.”
More artists joined the team to work on the new cartoon, always with a soundtrack in mind. To the beat of a metronome, one animator would play a harmonica while Disney and other cartoonists banged cowbells and tin plates, teaching themselves to sync sounds with images, inventing the first sound effects to be used in animation.
Mickey’s film was called Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon with sound. He had no voice yet; there was no dialogue, but for the first time, recorded music and sound effects were synced to animated images. Premiering at the Colony Theater in New York (today’s Broadway Theater) on November 18, 1928, it was an instant hit. From the New York Times to Variety, reviewers praised Disney’s achievement and predicted Mickey’s future potential. Over the next 18 months, Disney produced and distributed 31 cartoons starring Mickey Mouse, who promptly gained a voice, a wardrobe and millions of fans. He became more famous than living celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, providing Disney with the financial footing to build an empire.
ON THE WALK OF FAME:
Mickey Mouse: 6925 Hollywood Boulevard
Walt Disney: 7021 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures)
6747 Hollywood Boulevard (for television)
Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie, 1928
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
In 1915, D. W. Griffith delivered Hollywood’s first film epic, The Birth of a Nation.
President Wilson hailed it as “writing history with lightening,” the first film to be shown in the White House. “My only regret is that it is all so terribly true,” he reportedly added.
African Americans and many film fans viewed it as a work of jaw-dropping racism, for the film depicts African-Americans (played by white actors in blackface) as lustful, lazy villains who are defeated when the Ku Klux Klan rescues White America.
LA’s African American community was prohibited from working on the film in any capacity. The film they soon witnessed was a horror. (President Wilson later wrote that he disapproved of the “unfortunate production.”)
The Birth of a Nation rekindled support for the Ku Klux Klan. Riots broke out in Boston and Philadelphia following the film’s opening; the film’s inflammatory images (it’s a silent movie) provoked gangs of whites to attack black residents. The NAACP organized protests in some cities in advance, and succeeded in convincing theaters in Chicago, Minneapolis and elsewhere not to present the epic film.
Despite its repugnant politics, The Birth of a Nation represents an important achievement in film, still studied in film schools today. In an era of one-reel Charlie Chaplin comedies, here was a three-hour epic with a live o
rchestra and an intermission, an ambitious leap for the medium. The Birth of a Nation was the first to present film as an art form.
It was also the first to employ hundreds of extras for Civil War battle re-enactments (on LA’s undeveloped acres), the first to depict historical figures (Lincoln’s assassination) and the first to charge $2 per ticket (that’s nearly $50 today!). Most importantly, it proved the power of film: its ability to affect an audience at a visceral level.
As a public mea culpa, director D.W. Griffith’s next film was titled Intolerance.
RIN TIN TIN
Rin Tin Tin was one of Hollywood’s most successful silent movie stars. True, he was a dog, but that didn’t prevent him from earning $1,000 a week (that’s about $14,000 a week today!) from Warner Brothers, the movie studio that kept him under contract.
Near the end of World War I, U.S. troops defended the French town of Saint-Mihiel. At a bombed-out dog kennel, U.S. Corporal Lee Duncan saved a newborn German shepherd puppy. Months later, when the war ended, Duncan returned to Los Angeles with his new best friend, Rin Tin Tin.
In LA, Duncan and Eugene Pallette, a friend who acted in silent movies, taught the young dog some tricks. They entered him in a dog show, where the first slow-motion camera captured Rin Tin Tin leaping to an extraordinary height of nearly 12 feet. Movie moguls who viewed the new camera technique were equally intrigued by the performing dog. With a shiny coat and deep, dark eyes, a star was born. Rin Tin Tin soon became Warner Brothers’ most profitable star.