The Man Who Made the Movies

by Vanda Krefft

  23 at least two thousand millionaires: Milton Rugoff, America’s Gilded Age: Intimate Portraits from an Era of Extravagance and Change, 1850–1890 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989), 39–40.

  23 In 1916 the Final Report: Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes, 256.

  23 “largely the result either of the exploitation”: Ibid., 703.

  24 concentration of banking, legal, and advertising firms: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1046–1049.

  24 ten-story headquarters for the Standard Oil Trust: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1050.

  24 W. Duke . . . North Carolina, to Manhattan: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, MA and London, England: MIT Press, 1990), 27.

  24 huge factory at First Avenue and Thirty-Eighth: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1046.

  24 three hundred buildings with nine or more stories: Ibid., 1050.

  24 “These houses have about them”: Harry W. Desmond and Herbert David Croly, Stately Homes in America: From Colonial Times to the Present Day (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903), 32.

  24 Cornelius Vanderbilt’s favorite son: Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes, 333.

  24 seven hundred laborers . . . in only eighteen months: Alexis Gregory, Families of Fortune: Life in the Gilded Age (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1993), 112.

  24 William Kissam Vanderbilt: a $3 million: Rugoff, America’s Gilded Age, 88.

  24 imitation of a sixteenth-century Loire Valley chateau: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1071.

  24 fleurs-de-lis . . . blue slate roof: Gregory, Families of Fortune, 115.

  25 137-room palace . . . at 1 West Fifty-Seventh: Gregory, Families of Fortune, 115.

  25 Henry O. Havemeyer . . . Huntington: “Two Miles of Millionaires,” Munsey’s, June 1898, 355.

  25 “Two miles of millionaires”: “Two Miles of Millionaires,” Munsey’s, 348.

  25 “He didn’t want money”: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  25 Math was the only subject: Transcript, 4–5.

  25 At age ten: Ibid., 4. In USPWF, Sinclair wrote that Fox was eleven when he left school, but Fox had told Sinclair he dropped out when he was “not quite eleven years old.”

  25 D. Cohen and Sons: Transcript, 5.

  25 Hebrew name Melech: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  25 a doctor or a lawyer: Ibid.

  25 for about twenty-five cents: Mary Stevenson Callcott, Child Labor Legislation in New York: Laws in the State of New York, 1905–1930 (New York: Macmillan, 1931), 16–17.

  25 until about age fourteen: Transcript, 4.

  25 cotton mill bobbin boy: Frederick Lewis Allen, The Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900–1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1952), 64.

  26 seventeen . . . Dry Dock Engine Works: Henry Ford, My Life and Work, with Samuel Crowther. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923), 24.

  26 University of Gottingen: Allen, The Big Change, 65.

  26 clothing manufacturing firms multiplied . . . $437 million: Nancy L. Green, Ready-to-Wear and Ready-to-Work: A History of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and New York (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 46.

  26 44 percent of all ready-made clothes: Ibid., 48.

  26 until age fifteen: USPWF, 18.

  26 three-story: Transcript, 31.

  26 “finest men”: Ibid., 33.

  26 especially kind: Ibid.

  26 foreman, overseeing twelve men and boys: USPWF, 17.

  26 on the third floor: Ibid., 18.

  26 eleven hours a day: Transcript, 7.

  26 five hours on Saturday: Glendon Allvine, The Greatest Fox of Them All (New York: L. Stuart, 1969), 39.

  26 half-hour lunch: Transcript, 5.

  26 up a hatchway: Ibid., 31.

  26 Poor ventilation . . . “tailor’s disease”: Green, Ready-to-Wear, 157.

  26 eight dollars a week: Transcript, 31.

  27 “I didn’t like”: Ibid., 6.

  27 six-room railroad apartment: Ibid., 27.

  27 butter-and-egg store: Ibid.

  27 “much better type”: Ibid., 6.

  27 water pump: Ibid., 27.

  27 scrubbed the stairs: Ibid., 6.

  27 “The less he cared”: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  27 Dry Dock Savings Bank: Transcript, 32.

  27 “offer her a dollar”: Ibid.

  27 “the greatest part of my life”: Ibid., 23.

  27 Michael Fox was an Orthodox Jew . . . make money: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  27 named Goodman . . . “darn good rapping”: Transcript, 25–26.

  28 “a very stupid, ignorant man”: Ibid., 25.

  28 still bristling: USPWF, 17.

  28 “very severe and very brutal”: Transcript, 25.

  28 feign illness: Ibid., 5.

  28 “changed my viewpoint”: Ibid., 28.

  28 only God could have impelled: USPWF, 10.

  20 “sacredness of property”: Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth,” The North American Review 183, no. 599 (Sept. 21, 1906): 529.

  28 “the true Gospel” . . . “Peace on earth”: Ibid., 537.

  29 for three years became a socialist: USPWF, 23.

  29 750 to 800 of the total workforce of 3,800: Robert P. Weiss, “Private Detective Agencies and Labour Discipline in the United States: 1855–1946,” The Historical Journal 29, no. 1 (Mar. 1986): 93; F. W. Taussig, “The Homestead Strike,” The Economic Journal 3, no. 10 (June 1893): 311.

  29 pay cuts ranging from 18 to 26 percent: Sean Dennis Cashman, America in the Gilded Age (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 164.

  29 net profits had fallen . . . $4 million for 1892: Jonathan Rees, “Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 64, no. 4 (Autumn 1997): 526–527. 1890 and 1891 may have been anomalous years: net profits for 1889 had been $3.5 million.

  29 vacationing in the Scottish Highlands: Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1920), 228, 232.

  29 three hundred Pinkerton armed guards at five dollars a day: Cashman, America in the Gilded Age, 165.

  29 arrived in two barges . . . on July 6: Ibid.

  29 which side fired first: Edward W. Bemis, “The Homestead Strike,” Journal of Political Economy 2, no. 3 (June 1894): 381.

  29 twelve hours later: Steven M. Gillon, 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 109.

  29 ten workers and two Pinkerton guards: Weiss, “Detective Agencies and Labour Discipline,” 93.

  29 “Never employ one”: Gillon, 10 Days, 111.

  29 Six days later: Cashman, America in the Gilded Age, 165.

  30 By the end of July 1892: Ibid.

  30 festering in sullen despondency: Hamlin Garland, “Homestead And Its Perilous Trades, Impressions of a Visit,” McClure’s, June 1894, 3.

  30 “really serious quarrel”: Carnegie, Autobiography, 228.

  30 “outrageously wrong”: Ibid., 232.

  30 “I knew him very well”: USPWF, 23.

  30 wealthy Jewish parents . . . Curaçao: L. Glen Seretan, Daniel DeLeon: The Odyssey of an American Marxist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 5.

  30 law degree at Columbia College . . . 1878: Ibid., 6.

  30 lecturer at Columbia’s School of Political Science: Ibid., 6.

  30 quit the Columbia faculty in 1889 . . .professorship: Ibid., 17.

  30 “essentially genteel orientation”: Ibid., 29.

  30 nineteen novels by Eugène Sue: Ibid., 47.

  30 “the determining force in his life”: Ibid., 4.

  31 “I was satisfied . . . hand to mouth”: USPWF, 23.

  31 Around age fifteen: Transcript, 6.

  31 G. Lippmann & Sons: Ibid., 27; “Clothing Association Election,” NYT, Apr. 13, 1905, 6.


  31 an American District Telegraph messenger: “Black Eye Nucleus of Great Fortune,” Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 4, 1914, 10.

  31 “I couldn’t make as fine”: USPWF, 23.

  31 “Then it occurred”: Ibid., 24.

  31 falsely claiming . . . Leyden: Seretan, Daniel DeLeon, 12.

  31 “hopeless, helpless grasping” “empty-headed, ominous”: Daniel DeLeon, Translator’s Preface to Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York, Berlin: Mondial, 2005), i.

  32 “capital was what I needed”: Transcript, 32.

  32 “I can recall . . . shoes that way”: Ibid., 31–32.

  32 “During that period”: Ibid., 32.

  32 “As a kid of eleven or twelve”: George Gerhard, “William Fox, Owning Largest Theatre Here, Began with Smallest,” Evening World, Mar. 28, 1927.

  32 bought one of the tickets: Transcript, 9.

  32 “I was warned time and again”: Gerhard, “William Fox, Owning Largest.”

  32 read Shakespeare, hiding in the aisles: O. O. McIntyre, “William Fox—The Man and Artist,” unpublished manuscript, 1–2. William Fox clipping file, FSC,

  32 fellow ADT messenger: Transcript, 8.

  32 Weber and Fields: Ibid., 7.

  32 five or ten dollars: Ibid.

  33 known as the German Politician: Cliff Gordon ad, Variety, Apr. 21, 1906, 18.

  33 Clarendon Hall on East Thirteenth Street: Robert Grau, The Business Man in the Amusement World (New York: Broadway Publishing Co., 1910), 131.

  33 “prime favorites”: Robert Grau, The Theatre of Science (New York: Broadway Publishing Co., 1914), 20.

  33 the worst act they’d ever seen: “The Evolution of a Dutch Comedian,” unidentified publication. NYPL, Performing Arts branch, William Fox file.

  33 “Fox: Someone . . . offer?”: USPWF, 21.

  33 Bayonne, New Jersey . . . “went across”: Transcript, 7–8.

  33 prizefighter: “How Fox Scenarios are Read and Judged,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 21, 1917, 48.

  33 “When I got . . . black the other eye”: Transcript, 7–8.

  34 “purely to find out . . . appear in these shows”: Ibid., 9.

  34 stock of umbrellas: Ibid., 7.

  34 Admiral George Dewey’s victory . . . disappeared into the crowd: Ibid., 10–11.

  34 “I want to say this”: Ibid., 7.

  35 “I couldn’t think of anything mean”: Ibid., 27.

  CHAPTER 3: EVA

  36 Frances Howard and cheated on her: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn, A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 205.

  36 Mayer, annoyed . . . improve her mood: Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York: Crown Publishers, 1988), 389–92, 398.

  36 Jack Warner began stepping out: Ibid., 147–48.

  36 abandoned her and their teenage son . . . Ann Page Alvarado: Gabler, An Empire of Their Own, 148–49.

  36 teenage son: “Jack L. Warner Weds Mrs. Ann P. Alvarado,” NYT, Jan. 11, 1936, 9.

  36 delayed more than three years after Ann’s divorce: “Jack L. Warner Weds,” 9.

  36 Cohn once sexually attacked . . . potential acting job: Gabler, An Empire of Their Own, 246–47.

  36 “You’ll never work”: Ibid., 247.

  36 “very beautiful woman”: Transcript, 11.

  37 “[D]uring the most trying periods”: David A. Brown letter to Judge Guy Bard, Apr. 9, 1941, 13, DABP.

  37 costume party: Transcript, 11.

  37 fourteen or fifteen: Ibid. Fox told Upton Sinclair that he and Eva met when he was fourteen and she was ten. This is impossible. Eva was born on Aug. 2, 1884, and Fox on Jan. 1, 1879, so either she was nine and he was fourteen, or she was ten and he was fifteen.

  37 guests wore hired costumes: USPWF, 20.

  38 “paid little attention” . . . out of the room: Transcript, 11.

  38 “I had found the one”: Ibid.

  38 Boys became gamblers . . . “reign of terror”: S. S. McClure, “The Tammanyizing of a Civilization,” McClure’s Magazine, Nov. 1909, 120.

  39 “female wretchedness . . . bestiality”: Ibid., 118.

  39 “chief recruiting ground”: George Kibbe Turner, “The Daughters of the Poor,” McClure’s Magazine, Nov. 1909, 54.

  39 “unprotected young girls”: Ibid.

  39 as young as thirteen: George Kibbe Turner, “Tammany’s Control of New York by Professional Criminals,” McClure’s Magazine, June 1909, 122.

  39 five brothers and sisters: USPWF, 27.

  39 spoke German almost entirely: Transcript, 5; Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  39 After five or six years: Eva was born on Aug. 2, 1884 (Eva Fox, U.S. passport application, July 10, 1922, www.ancestry.com).

  39 a box of good cigars: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  39 one cold winter night . . . Eva accepted: USPWF, 27–28.

  40 “a very fine public wedding”: Transcript, 11.

  40 from $675 to $325: “A Story of William Fox: From the Melting Pot and Low Wages to Multi-Millionaire,” Bulletin F-5, unpublished, Jul. 1916, 1. NYPL, New York Sun newspaper morgue files 1900–1950, “Fox, William #3” file.

  40 eleven-dollar-a-month railroad apartment: USPWF, 47.

  40 “my choice”: Transcript, 11.

  40 Anna protested: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  40 “Without any real evidence”: Ibid.

  40 Seventeen dollars a week: Transcript, 12.

  40 cutting room: Ibid., 10.

  41 rarely found time to visit his mother: Angela Fox Dunn, unpublished William Fox notes, no. 1, p. 21. AFD.

  41 August 1900 . . . in his own name: A Story of William Fox, Bulletin F-5.

  41 Dissatisfied with his salary: William Fox . . .Theatrical Magnate,” Associated Press Sketch 1684.

  41 Edward S. Rothchild: “William Fox . . . TheatricalMagnate,” Associated Press Sketch 1684, Jan. 1930, unpublished, BPL-BC, Brooklyn Daily Eagle morgue, “Fox, William (Movie Pictures Biogs.)” file (also in Newark Evening News morgue, Newark Public Library); “Chelsea Exchange Gains,” NYT, Dec. 17, 1926, 39.

  41 Their company would serve: Transcript, 12.

  42 piece of brown paper: Ibid., 13.

  42 Benjamin S. Moss: “Shot at Two, Killed Himself” NYT, Jan. 20, 1901, 2; “B. S. Moss, Active in Theatre World,” NYT, Dec. 13, 1951, 33.

  42 Knickerbocker Cloth Examining: Transcript, 12.

  42 April 1900: Ibid., 10.

  42 Moss . . . the senior partner: “Shot at Two,” 2.

  42 responsibility for soliciting business: Transcript, 12.

  42 after-hours fire: “Band Plays During Fire,” NYT, June 19, 1900, 9.

  42 January 19, 1901 . . . nearly got murdered: “Kills Himself in the Street,” NYTR, Jan. 20, 1901, 8; “Shot at Two,” 2.

  42 fifty-nine-year-old . . . advance him twenty-five dollars: “Kills Himself in the Street,” 8.

  42 nearby house . . . fired May on Saturday morning: Ibid.

  42 insisted that only Moss: “Shot at Two,” 2.

  42 waited outside the building: Ibid.

  42 Fourth and Wooster: Ibid.

  42 May pulled a gun . . . brim of his hat: “Kills Himself,” 8.

  43 building’s boiler broke: William Fox v. Edwin W. Coggeshall and O. Egerton Schmidt, Respondents, Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, First Department, 95 AD 410; 88 NYS 676; 1904. NY App. Div. LEXIS 2002.

  43 “barely made a living” . . . second year: Transcript, 12.

  43 countersigning . . . “doing business”: Ibid., 13.

  43 $1,000 loan: Ibid.

  43 “whole new outfit”: Ibid.

  43 “You are broke now”: Ibid.

  44 “From the beginning . . . adorn our walls”: USPWF, 47.

  44 “Mrs. Fox hasn’t just . . . away from me”: Transcript, 43–44.

  44 “I was well rewarded”: Ibid., 11.

  CHAPTER 4: THE DARK SIDE OF THE DREAM

/>   45 Flaunting a paper . . . manufacturing costs: Transcript 20.

  45 November 1900: Frances A. Hess, Temple Emanu-El Archivist, gives Mona’s birth date as Nov. 17, 1900, and Mona’s marriage license application of May 16, 1923, states that she was then twenty-two. Erroneously, Eva’s 1922 passport application lists Mona’s birth date as Nov. 17, 1901.

  45 $600 . . . boarded a train: Transcript, 20.

  45 only three dollars in his pocket: Ibid.

  45 the Iroquois: Ibid., 21.

  45 “From the railroad station . . . 100 pans”: Ibid., 20–21.

  46 canceled his reservation: Ibid., 21.

  46 hadn’t sold a single pan . . . an appointment: Ibid., 21–22.

  46 forty-eight-year-old: Born Apr. 13, 1852.

  46 Woolworth’s office . . . oversupply: Transcript, 21–22.

  46 “not over prosperous”: Ibid., 22.

  46 agreed to buy all: Ibid.

  46 Detroit-born . . . drifted around the Midwest: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” NYT, Sept. 8, 1901, 1; “Assassin’s Statement,” LAT, Sept. 8, 1901, 2.

  46 tweny-eight-year-old: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” 1.

  46 defective and cowardly: “Assassin Known as a Rabid Anarchist,” NYT, Sept. 8, 1901, 4.

  46 never succeeded much: “Assassin’s Statement,” 2.

  47 mental breakdown: Ibid.; “Assassin Known as a Rabid Anarchist,” 4.

  47 firebrand Emma Goldman: “Watch on City Anarchists,” New York Sun, Sept. 8, 1901, 4.

  47 “nearly split with the pain”: “Assassin’s Statement,” 2.

  47 “do something heroic”: Ibid.

  47 cheap hotel . . . 1078 Broadway: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” 1.

  47 wandered around: Ibid.

  47 McKinley arrived by train on Wednesday: “President at Buffalo,” NYT, Sept. 5, 1901, 7.

  47 repeatedly tried to get close: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” 1.

  47 buffeted back . . .”tossed about”: Ibid.

  47 “bowing to the great ruler”: “Assassin’s Statement,” 2.

  47 no escape . . .”in my heart”: Ibid.

  47 Around 4:00 p.m.: “The President Twice Shot, But Lives,” LAT, Sept. 7, 1901, 1.

  47 Main Street . . . one hundred feet: Transcript, 22.

  47 Dressed in black: “The President Twice Shot,” 1.

  47 .32-caliber revolver: “Assassin’s Statement,” 2.