The Man Who Made the Movies

by Vanda Krefft

  121 would spend $1 million to defend: William Fox to Upton Sinclair, June 8, 1932, US-MSS.

  121 more than five hundred plays: “Box Office Producers,” MPW, Nov. 7, 1914, 791.

  121 Born in Montreal . . . military academy: Terry Ramsaye, “The Romantic History of the Motion Picture,” Photoplay, Oct. 1924, 57.

  121 “prime ministerial”: Herbert Howe, “The Maker of Queens,” Picture-Play Magazine, June 1921, 62.

  121 stage actor in New York: Ramsaye, “The Romantic History of the Motion Picture,” 57.

  121 “left in the background”: “Who’s Who On The Stage,” NYT, Jan. 10, 1926, X4.

  121 return . . . after the outbreak of war: Ramsaye, “The Romantic History of the Motion Picture,” 124; “Edwards Directing,” Variety, Aug. 28, 1914, 16.

  121 assigned him to direct: Fox Film ad, “The Exhibitor’s Eternal Question,” MPN, Apr. 24, 1915, 25.

  121 movie rights for $500: William Fox to Saul Rogers, Apr. 19, 1916, Life’s Shop Window Correspondence, FLC. Fox later said he’d paid $100 (Transcript, 82), but that was incorrect.

  121 “little bit of a studio”: Transcript, 65.

  121 double as the caterer . . . “there was the devil”: Mark Hellinger, “About Broadway,” Atlanta Constitution, Mar. 31, 1929, F-24.

  121 on November 2, 1914: “Copyright Renewal on Motion Pictures,” Life’s Shop Window Correspondence, FLC.

  122 “masterpiece of picturization”: Fox Film ad, “Fox Features—Better Than The Best,” MPN, Apr. 17, 1915, 5.

  122 “faulty direction”: Life’s Shop Window review, Variety, Nov. 14, 1914, 25.

  122 inept editing, “mutilated and distorted”: W. Stephen Bush, review of Life’s Shop Window, MPW, Nov. 14, 1914, 944.

  122 “unbelievably poor”: Ibid.

  122 “false advertising”: Ibid.

  122 afternoon showing at . . . Audubon Theatre: Transcript, 78.

  122 “I remember the manager”: Ibid.

  122 New York sensation: Box Office Attraction Co. ad, Life’s Shop Window, MPW, Nov. 21, 1914, 1029.

  122 “one of the biggest hits”: Box Office Attraction Co. ad, “Presenting William Fox Features,” MPW, Sept. 26, 1914, 1732.

  122 “moralized” all the life: Transcript, 42.

  122 “Unfortunately, we attracted”: Ibid., 78.

  122 “It taught me”: Ibid.

  122 “fifty of the biggest” . . . best-selling books: “Fox Talks of Plans,” MPW, Oct. 24, 1914, 472.

  123 William Farnum . . . Edward Jose: “Box Office Engages Array of Broadway Stars,” MPN, Nov. 21, 1914, 24.

  123 Robert Edeson: “Fox Engages Robert Edeson,” MPW, Nov. 21, 1914, 1092.

  123 fifteen BOA distribution offices . . . projection rooms: “Old Favorites on Box Office Program,” MPN, Oct. 31, 1914, 68.

  123 mostly self-taught artist: “Winsor McCay, 62, Cartoonist, Dead,” NYT, July 27, 1934, 17.

  123 woodcuts . . . street signs . . . posters: Ibid.

  123 no business sense, “absolute craving”: John Canemaker, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987), 16.

  123 ten thousand drawings: “Winsor McCay, 62, Cartoonist, Dead,” 17.

  123 allowed movie cameras inside: “Gertie and Other Dinosaurs in the McCay Picture,” MPW, Nov. 28, 1914, 1242.

  124 six months of work: In real life, it had taken McCay more than a year to create Gertie because the film required twenty-four drawings per second of screen time (Jerry Beck, ed. The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals [Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc., 1994], 15).

  124 December 28, 1914: Gertie ad, MPW, Dec. 26, 1914, 1863.

  124 “greatest comedy film”: Ibid.

  124 “greatest cartoonist”: Ibid.

  124 “financial disaster”: William L. Silber, When Washington Shut Down Wall Street: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 and the Origins of America’s Monetary Supremacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 1.

  124 European investors rushed . . . gold standard: Ibid.

  124 more than $25 million in gold: Ibid., 15–16.

  125 escalate into catastrophe: Alexander D. Noyes, The War Period of American Finance, 1908–1925 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926), 71–72.

  125 liquidate only 25 percent . . . U.S. gold supply: Silber, When Washington Shut Down Wall Street, 14.

  125 fell another 6 percent: Ibid., 11.

  125 On July 28 . . . March 14: Silber, When Washington Shut Down Wall Street, 11.

  125 closed for more than four months: Silber, When Washington Shut Down Wall Street, 150. Although bond trading resumed at the NYSE on November 28, 1914, stocks were not readmitted for trading until mid-December. (“Prosperity Greets Open Stock Trading,” NYT, Dec. 12, 1914, 1.)

  125 ten days during the panic of 1873: Silber, When Washington Shut Down Wall Street, 17.

  125 thirteen British merchantmen . . . trade halted: Noyes, The War Period of American Finance, 62.

  125 Farmers . . . copper, steel, meat, and oil: Ibid., 63–69.

  125 started hoarding money: Ibid., 74.

  125 personally invested $360,000: Transcript, 66.

  125 creditors’ demands for payment: Ibid., 67.

  125 “needed more money”: Ibid., 66.

  125 stopped lending altogether . . .sixty days’ notice: Noyes, The War Period of American Finance, 73.

  126 ten individual investors: James C. G. Conniff and Richard Conniff, The Energy People: A History of PSE&G (Newark, NJ: Public Service Electric and Gas Company, 1978), 74.

  126 bought in personally: “New Jersey Capitalists Prepared to Back Fox,” 46.

  126 Anthony R. Kuser . . . wife’s late father: Ronald J. DuPont, Jr., “The Monument Man,” New Jersey Highlander 20, nos. 3, 4 (Fall/Winter 1984): 5.

  126 considered largely to run: Conniff and Conniff, The Energy People, 146.

  118 president and controlling . . . bank: Conniff and Conniff, The Energy People, 152.

  126 younger brother . . . utility conglomerate: Ibid., 67–70.

  126 the remaining $100,000: Transcript, 67.

  126 Five investors joined: Fox Film ad, “The New William Fox Policy,” 21.

  126 On January 25, 1915: “Trust Co. Declares a 375 P.C. Dividend,” NYT, Jan. 26, 1915, 13.

  127 “If there had not been a war”: Transcript, 67.

  CHAPTER 12: “WILLIAM FOX PRESENTS”

  128 “real pictures of real men and women”: Fox Film ad, “The New William Fox Policy,” MPN, July 24, 1915, 22.

  128 Leavitt Building: “Fox New York Offices Enlarged by Another Entire Floor,” MPN, Sept. 25, 1915, 54.

  128 at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m.: Transcript, 43.

  128 stay away for long: “He Forgets to Sleep; William Fox’s Nights Spent Viewing Films,” Salt Lake Telegram, Sept. 12, 1916, 15.

  129 chose all the stories: Ibid.

  129 wicker chair . . . green-shaded lamp: Ibid.

  129 each director about reshoots: Transcript, 43.

  129 helped edit the footage: “William Fox Is the ‘Man Who Forgets to Sleep,’ ” MPN, Sept. 16, 1916, 1691.

  129 “has his hand on every detail”: “‘Punch’ Given Picture By Good Titles Known to Fox,” MPN, Sept. 18, 1915, 75.

  129 up to fifty reels of film: Fox Film Corporation, “Interview with William Fox,” unpublished, May 1915. NYPL for the Performing Arts, William Fox clipping file.

  129 approved every foot of film: “He Forgets to Sleep; William Fox’s Nights Spent Viewing Films,” 15.

  129 never received a salary: Transcript, 671.

  129 “She was in the habit . . . it was Mrs. Fox”: Ibid.

  130 “If there were half a dozen”: Ibid., 57.

  130 stayed at the office as long as he did: Ibid., 43.

  130 continuously running . . . variety program: George K. Spoor, “Advocates Return to Short, Varied Program,” New York Morning Telegraph, July 2, 1916.

  130 lost abo
ut $2,000: “The King Is Dead—Long Live the King” HR, May 3, 1924, 72.

  131 “set my hand to the oar”: Unidentified article. NYPL for the Performing Arts, William Fox clipping file.

  131 top female star: “Betty Nansen to Pose for Fox Pictures Here,” MPN, Dec. 26, 1914, 28.

  131 muse of the late Henrik Ibsen: “Betty Nansen Now Ready for Fox Pictures,” MPN, Jan. 9, 1915, 59.

  131 originated the role of Hedda Gabler: “Betty Nansen Likes America,” MPW, Jan. 16, 1916, 377.

  131 second Sarah Bernhardt: “Betty Nansen Is Called the Bernhardt of Moving Pictures,” Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Apr. 18, 1915, 64.

  131 forty-one-year-old: Born Mar. 19, 1873.

  132 “classic works of masters”: “About Photoplays and Photo Players,” AS, Dec. 27, 1914.

  132 $25,000 a year: “Betty Nansen Coming to America,” MPW, Jan. 2, 1915, 79.

  132 two and a half times his own 1915 salary: After taking $1,000, as his yearly salary with Box Office Attraction, Fox had given himself a raise to $10,000 and would remain at that pay level for several years.

  132 bringing several manuscripts: “Betty Nansen,” NYTR, Dec. 20, 1914, B4.

  132 sex drama: “How Betty Nansen Went to Brooklyn,” NYT, Jan. 10, 1915, 67.

  132 December 26, 1914: “Tree of Light Greets Actress,” NYTR, Dec. 27, 1914, 10.

  132 welcoming committee: “Notes Written on the Screen,” NYT, Dec. 20, 1914, X9.

  132 Danish consul: “Danish Actress Arrives,” NYT, Dec. 27, 1914, 13.

  132 large, brightly lit Christmas tree: “Tree of Light Greets Actress,” 10.

  132 sable cape from Czarina: “Betty Nansen Now Ready for Fox Pictures,” 59.

  132 forty-six trunks: “How Betty Nansen Went to Brooklyn,” 67.

  132 $50,000 worth: “Betty Nansen to Pose for Fox Pictures Here,” 28.

  132 reception at the Plaza Hotel: “News of Plays and Players,” NYTR, Dec. 21, 1914, 9.

  133 budgeted only a low-end $25,000: William Fox deposition, Aug. 6, 1915, Hilliard v. William Fox Vaudeville Company (NARA, NYC). Although Fox would advertise that A Fool There Was featured $100,000 worth of costumes as well as sets by Tiffany (A Fool There Was ad, MO, Jan. 17, 1915, 4), he admitted in a lawsuit over profit-reporting procedures that he had spent only $25,000 on the entire production. He wasn’t alone in his doubts about the movie’s prospects. The play’s owners had sold him the worldwide movie rights for only $1 plus a $1,000 nonrefundable deposit toward 10 percent of the gross receipts.

  133 “[N]inety-nine percent of the performers”: Transcript, 92.

  133 merely looked into the room: Unpublished Theda Bara autobiography, 109, available at Archives and Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati. (hereafter “Unpublished Bara autobiography”).

  133 thirty-year-old: Although Theda’s birth year was often given as 1892, and although she claimed on her 1920 passport application to have been born on July 20, 1890, U.S. Census records for 1900 show that she was born in July 1885.

  133 “failed to take much notice”: Eve Golden, Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara (Vestal, NY: Emprise Publishing, Inc., 1996), 22.

  134 rent problem . . . “heartbreaking”: Theda Bara, “How I Became A Film Vampire,” Forum, June 1919, 725.

  134 standard beginner’s contract . . . three months: Transcript, 81.

  134 impressed with her performance: Ibid., 80.

  134 “Look where my good money’s”: Unpublished Bara autobiography, page number unclear.

  134 “I could hardly keep myself”: Ibid.

  134 January 1915: Because Fox Film wasn’t officially incorporated until Feb. 1, 1915, the movie was released under the Box Office Attraction banner.

  135 “the theatrical feeling”: Transcript, 80.

  135 4,900 tickets . . . Portland: “A Fool There Was Plays to 4,900 Admissions,” MPN, Feb. 20, 1915, 36.

  135 box-office records . . . Dallas: “Washington Theater,” Dallas Morning News, Jan. 18, 1915, 5.

  135 “scared to death”: “Theda Bara as She Is in Real Life,” unidentified publication, no date. HTC.

  136 “We have changed our environment”: Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1914), 153.

  136 “[W]e had almost all of us forgotten”: James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1932), 367.

  136 stripping Edward José’s name . . . “box-office window”: Harlowe R. Hoyt, “Vampires No Longer Are Bara’s Choice,” CPD, Dec. 18, 1920, 12.

  136 “a rebellious girl”: Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003), 3.

  136 doing healthy business: “Three Film Stars Get $1,000,000 a Year Each,” NYT, May 27, 1917, 62.

  136 $1 million in profits: Ibid.

  136 “bold and relentless”: A Fool There Was review, New York Dramatic Mirror, Jan. 20, 1915, 31.

  136 “[P]owerfully absorbing . . . exceedingly excellent”: Peter Milne, review of A Fool There Was, MPN, Jan. 23, 1915, 47.

  137 leading lady of the Théâtre Antoine: “Strong Play to be Shown Here,” Morning Olympian (Olympia, WA), Mar. 17, 1915, 2.

  137 “marvelous interpretations”: “Paris Actress Sensation in Gotham,” Lexington Herald, Feb. 4, 1915, 8.

  137 Berlin and Vienna: “Strong Play to be Shown Here,” 2.

  137 warm, friendly expressions: “In the Frame of Public Favor,” CPD, June 27, 1915, 70; “Paris Actress Sensation in Gotham,” 8.

  137 no evidence indicates . . . famous anywhere: Golden, Vamp, 22.

  137 “I was never able to find out”: Transcript, 80.

  137 O’Neil . . . sole billing: Ibid, 81.

  137 “pantherish” Iza: Fox Film ad, “Fox Features—Better Than The Best,” 5.

  137 buyers shunned . . . Secret: Golden, Vamp, 60.

  137 hereditary mental illness: “Lady Audley in Miss,” Jonesboro Evening Sun (Jonesboro, AR), Dec. 31, 1915, 4. Although Theda’s Lady Audley tried to kill an inconvenient first husband, Fox Film described her role as having “nothing of the vampire” about it. (Lady Audley’s Secret review, AC, Aug. 17, 1915, 5.)

  138 “women in Montgomery”: “Manager Smith Returns from Trip to New York,” Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, AL), Aug. 9, 1915, 2.

  138 the brains of the business: “‘Scenario Is Basis of All Good Pictures,’—Fox,” MPN, May 20, 1916, 3076.

  138 “Fox money bought”: Raoul Walsh, Each Man in His Time: The Life Story of a Director (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 137.

  138 twenty-eight-year-old: Born Mar. 11, 1887.

  138 on orders from Fox . . . Alexandria Hotel: Walsh, Each Man in His Time, 111.

  138 only about $100 a week: Ibid., 112.

  138 $400 a week . . . words blurred: Ibid., 113.

  138 “Who’s backing them—God?”: Ibid.

  139 Montreal resort to film ski-racing: “Anna Karenina at Rex Tonight,” Morning Olympian (Olympia, WA), June 23, 1915, 4.

  139 Delaney . . . touting her “magnificent”: “A Lavish Setting For The Great Ansonia Film,” AS, June 15, 1915, 11.

  139 “Queen of Emotional Acting”: “A Fox Feature at Empire Friday,” Jonesboro Daily Tribune (Jonesboro, AR, Dec. 9, 1915, 3.

  139 “marks a new epoch”: “A Big Feature At Empire Wednesday,” Jonesboro Daily Tribune (Jonesboro AR), June 23, 1915, 2.

  139 “no wild sobs”: “Noted Tragedienne Is Won Over to Movies,” MO, May 16, 1915, 9.

  139 spiritual rebirth in snowy Siberia: “Ben Ali,” Lexington Herald, July 6, 1915, 6.

  139 “She is human”: “Dramatization of A Woman’s Resurrection,” Duluth News Tribune, Aug. 29, 1915, 9.

  139 Macbeth and Othello: “About Photoplays and Photo Players,” AS, Jan. 16, 1916, 5.

  139 nationwide poll of first-run theater owners: Ibid.

  139 “[W]hile we appreciate”: Ibid.

  140 “monarch of the movies�
� . . . “railway magnates”: “A Buyer of Brains is this Moving Picture Magnate,” AS, Mar. 16, 1915, 9.

  140 “Brother, we aren’t”: Fox Film ad, “The New William Fox Policy,” 22.

  140 “The truth of it . . . WILL make money”: Ibid.

  140 ready to leave anyway: “Betty Nansen Sails for Copenhagen,” Macon Daily Telegraph (Macon, GA), July 28, 1915, 8.

  140 Al Selig and John Goldfrap: Golden, Vamp, 38.

  140 “Vampire Woman: “Manager Smith Returns from Trip to New York,” 2.

  140 born in Egypt: Bara, “How I Became a Film Vampire,” 717.

  140 Giuseppe Bara and his French actress wife: Wallace Franklin, “Purgatory’s Ivory Angel,” Photoplay, Sept. 1915, 69.

  140 Grand Guignol theater: Ibid.

  140 green jade, elephants . . . feminism: “The Frame of Public Favor,” CDT, Mar. 5, 1916, D3.

  140 “born on the desert”: “The Call Boy’s Chat,” PI, Sept. 26, 1920, 11.

  141 “two blocks from the Sphinx”: Ibid.

  141 “The newspaper men left”: Transcript, 81.

  141 “I put my fingers . . . Bara is Bara”: Franklin, “Purgatory’s Ivory Angel,” 69.

  141 Egyptian astrology: “Theda Bara Born Under Influence Of Two Planets,” Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo CO), Marc. 26, 1917, 2.

  141 Greek dancing: “Moving Picture News,” MO, Sept. 28, 1916, 8.

  141 walk in a cemetery before every new role: “Fox Players Never Fail to Rap on Wood,” New York Morning Telegraph, Mar. 12, 1916.

  141 whistling frog: “News Notes from Movieland,” Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, AL), Feb. 29, 1916, 6.

  141 “My shape is not beautiful”: Unpublished Bara autobiography, 113.

  141 “What do you want” . . . “Fat legs”: Ibid.

  141 “the saving grace of baffling”: Bara, “How I Became a Film Vampire,” 717.

  141 snakes, skulls, bats, mummies: Ronald Genini, Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1996), 55.

  141 “My heart is ice . . . beware”: Fox Film ad, The Devil’s Daughter, MPN, June 19, 1915, 6–7.

  142 attacked by an angry mob: Oscar Cooper, review of Sin, MPN, Oct. 16, 1915, 85.

  142 trampy Russian peasant girl . . . all a dream: Jolo, review of The Serpent, Variety, Jan. 28, 1916, 23.