Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy

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Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy Page 7

by Debra Ann Pawlak


  In light of this new success and popularity, he chose not to return to the stage, but still preferred New York to California. Sills kept an apartment near Columbia University where he spent as much time as he could in between pictures. Photoplay magazine reporter Alison Smith visited him there and was most impressed by his overwhelming collection of multilingual books:

  The walls are literally lined with books from floor to ceiling. It is the type of library that has been lovingly gathered together instead of being ordered by the square foot through a conscientious interior decorator. The books are obviously in daily contact with the life of their owner … This library dominates the room; you feel that all the rest was built about it and that the whole belongs to a scholar and a gentleman …

  Sills was also an active member of both the Lambs’ and Friars’ Clubs. Known throughout the industry for his keen intelligence, Sills enjoyed a good game of chess, classical music and some serious gardening. Tall and stately, he was often pictured in a pensive moment wearing a well-turned suit and sporting a pipe that Sherlock Holmes would envy. A man with vision, Sills always had a lot on his mind. He once spoke to a group of Harvard business students:

  … For the survival of the industry, it is necessary today, to draft men of finer intelligence and cultural background, of greater energy, of greater business power, and of greater poetic creativeness.… Personally, I look forward to the day when … schools of motion picture technique may be developed, from which we may draw our cameramen, our directors, our supervisors, our writers.…

  As an actor, the upstanding Sills was a fan favorite who commanded respect both on-screen and off. A true scholar and a genuine gentleman, he brought brainpower and sophistication to the movies proving that highbrow could be just as entertaining as its country cousin, slapstick, which by and large still dominated the movie scene at the time.

  While Milton Sills continued his studies and polished his smooth persona, western star Jack Holt was building his brawn. The fifth of six children, Charles John Holt was named after his father, an Episcopalian minister. His mother, Frances Marshall, was the great-granddaughter of Virginian John Curtis Marshall who after serving as a captain in the Revolutionary War was appointed the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by second U.S. President John Adams in 1801. For the next 34 years, Marshall molded the Supreme Court into the authoritative and influential branch of government that exists today.

  Like his great-great-grandfather, Holt often claimed to be from Virginia. Unlike Marshall, however, he wasn’t really born there. Holt spent many years of his youth in Winchester, but he was actually born in Fordham, New York on May 31, 1888. Given Holt’s penchant for horses and range riders, Winchester just sounded like a better place for a cowpoke to come from.

  After attending New York’s historic Trinity Preparatory School, sixteen-year-old Holt enrolled in the Virginia Military Institute located in Lexington, giving himself a bit of that Virginia pedigree. His first year there went by with little fuss, but during his second year, Holt outraged the school’s faculty and students when he festooned a statue of George Washington with orange and green paint. His prank cost him one year’s suspension. When he was finally forgiven and taken back into the fold, he got serious and, without further incident, earned a degree in civil engineering. Holt then returned to New York where he found work with the Pennsylvania Railroad supervising laborers in a tunnel underneath the Hudson River. A restless man, it didn’t take long before boredom caught up with him.

  Holt didn’t want to spend the rest of his life on the rails or under the ground, but he couldn’t decide where to go next. He was drawn to the excitement generated by Alaska, as well as the unique opportunities offered by the developing Panama Canal Zone. Undecided, Holt flipped a coin and Alaska prevailed. He took an engineering job with the Donahue Exploration Company who had copper interests in the frigid territory. Before long, however, Holt found that the business of engineering just wasn’t exciting enough. With adventure on his mind, he struck out on his own. For the next six years, he traveled throughout the Yukon working as a gold prospector, fur trapper and even a postman who delivered the mail across hundreds of miles championing a dog-pulled sled.

  When Holt finally tired of mushing, he traveled to Oregon where he pitched a tent in the middle of a friend’s fruit orchard. Soon working with cowboys, he rekindled his youthful fondness for horses and became an expert rider. In 1913, his wanderlust took him to San Rafael, California, near San Francisco. While looking for work, he spotted a movie crew filming near the Russian River. The filmmakers needed a stuntman brave enough to tumble down the steep riverbank and into the water—on a horse. The fearless Holt stepped up and did such a fine job that the director gave him a bit part in the early western, Salomy Jane (1914).

  Holt followed the crew back to Hollywood where he continued working as a stuntman, extra and occasional villain. His square jaw, striking looks and tough muscular build, however, were well suited for heroes. The Ford Brothers, directors John and Francis, soon noticed him. They cast him in several films including His Majesty Dick Turpin (1916) and Born of the People (1916). He even worked with Milton Sills and Irene Castle in that serial Patria—though unlike Sills, Holt never once mentioned penance.

  In between movies, Holt met divorcée and single mother Margaret Helen Wood. She was the daughter of Henry Stanley Wood who owned the American Hoist and Derrick Company located in St. Paul, Minnesota. The international business was responsible for manufacturing construction equipment some of which was used for building the Panama Canal, as well as the development of Mount Rushmore. Holt married Margaret on December 6, 1916 and took in her young daughter, Imogene, from her previous marriage. The Holts also had two children of their own, Charles John III born on February 5, 1919 and Elizabeth Marshall born November 10, 1920.

  The always-reliable Holt worked steadily, but it was his supporting role as the wicked Lord Raa in The Woman Thou Gavest Me (1919) that grabbed moviegoers’ attention. By 1922, he was so popular that when the drug-addicted matinée idol Wallace Reid could no longer work, Holt replaced him as John Webster in Nobody’s Money (1923). Starring roles in comedies and dramas continued, but the brawny actor finally came into his own when he returned to the western genre with some assistance from novelist Zane Grey.

  Grey’s best-selling book, Riders of the Purple Sage, published in 1912, was one of the first novels set in the old West. In 1918, Hollywood produced the film version under the direction of Frank Lloyd. Grey continued churning out western novels and Hollywood continued adapting them for the silver screen. In 1924, with Grey’s blessing, Holt was cast as cowboy hero Adam Larey in Wanderer of the Wasteland. The following year Holt made five movies, three of them Zane Grey westerns—The Thundering Herd, The Light of Western Stars, and Wild Horse Mesa. A skilled horseman and passionate polo player off-screen, Holt handled his own riding stunts and always wowed the crowd with his agility. Moviegoers couldn’t get enough of this strapping plainsman who was always fearless and frank.

  Sometimes his work followed him home as Barbara Miller reported in the L.A. Times on April 26, 1925:

  … The other day at the studio [Holt] was called off the set to answer a frantic phone call from home telling him that two Indians were there in a taxicab and the nurse had no idea what to do with them.

  So Holt had them come over, for they are members of the Arapahoe tribe who took part in The Thundering Herd—Chief-Goes-In-The-Lodge and Lone Buck, come to see their friend “Big Buffalo,” the name given Holt when he was taken into the tribe. The venerables are appearing in the prologue at [Sid] Grauman’s Egyptian [Theater] under the direction of Colonel Tim McCoy.

  Amidst all the electrifying drama and exhilarating action supplied by the brainy Milton Sills, the brawny Jack Holt and others of their ilk, film fans still couldn’t resist a genuine, belly-rattling guffaw at the end of a tough week. They also knew who to count on for an entertaining, lighthearted delivery—Charlie Chaplin with his
twirling cane, Buster Keaton with his stone face, Fatty Arbuckle with his pie-throwing and fan favorite Harold Lloyd with his infamous horn-rimmed glasses.

  Harold Clayton Lloyd was born in the tiny town of Burchard, Nebraska (.2 square miles) on April 20, 1893 in a small frame cottage. Five years younger than his older brother, Gaylord, he was the second son of James Darsie “Foxy” Lloyd and Sarah Elizabeth “Lizzie” Fraser, a milliner. The Lloyds moved from city to city throughout Nebraska and Colorado because Foxy couldn’t keep a job. He was too busy chasing grandiose get-rich-quick schemes that never seemed to materialize. Among his enterprises, Foxy had a go at taking photographs, clerking in a shoe store and selling sewing machines.

  The youngest Lloyd was stage-struck from an early age. By the time he was 12, he was performing in local theaters. As a teen, he left the boards to take a short-lived turn at boxing. Although he relished the audience’s attention, he didn’t appreciate the punches so he quickly left the ring and returned to the stage. Eventually, Lizzie grew tired of following Foxy from place to place so she divorced him in 1910. Her seventeen-year-old son chose to stay with his father.

  In 1911, the elder Lloyd won a $6,000 settlement (split 50/50 with his lawyer) for an earlier motor vehicle accident in Nebraska. He decided to use the money to benefit his son. Lloyd later explained:

  … I didn’t know whether to go to New York, the Mecca of show business, or to California, where I would be accepted in the stock company. We actually tossed a coin and California won.…

  The two men moved to San Diego where Foxy ran a pool hall and lunch counter while his son finished high school and made his film debut as an Indian in The Old Monk’s Tale (1913). Young Lloyd then moved to Los Angeles where he worked for producer Mack Sennett in a number of Keystone comedies. He was also employed as an extra at Universal where he met future filmmaker, and former Alaskan adventurer, Hal Roach. After receiving an inheritance, Roach, along with partner Dan Linthicum, established their own studio, Rolin Film Company, in Culver City, California. Lloyd joined him there to play a character named Willie Work in a series of shorts. Willie, similar to Chaplin, with his baggy pants, scruffy hat and cat mustache, wasn’t exactly a crowd pleaser.

  Lloyd then developed a more popular character, Lonesome Luke, another pale imitation of Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Luke’s ill-fitting clothes were too tight, unlike Chaplin’s oversized outfits. Like the Tramp, Luke also sported a mustache and large clumsy shoes, which he wore on the wrong feet. Between 1916 and 1917, Lloyd and Roach made over 100 films depicting Luke and his leading lady, teenage actress Bebe Daniels, in various predicaments. Lloyd later recalled:

  Whatever the plot, the picture always ended with 200 feet of chase. I was pursued by dogs, sheriffs, angry housewives, circus tigers, motor cars, baby carriages, wild bulls, trolleys, locomotives and, of course, legions of cops.

  As popular as he was, Lloyd thought he could do better. Keeping Daniels as his costar, as well as off-screen romantic partner, he got rid of the mustache and donned a simple two-button suit topped by a dapper straw boater. His only distinguishing feature was a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses minus the lenses. Inspired by a theater actor with a similar pair, Lloyd visited an optical shop in Los Angeles where he found just the right ones. He filmed using those glasses until they practically fell apart and then ordered another 20 identical pairs. Still, sentiment prevailed and Lloyd once admitted to wearing that original pair in the first scene of each of his subsequent films. Although he never wore them off-screen, the spectacles became his trademark.

  He referred to his new creation as “The Glasses Character” or “The Boy” and described him as a “quiet, normal, boyish, clean, sympathetic, not impossible to romance” kind of guy. Lloyd was the first to bring an ordinary Joe to the silver screen. With his average, everyday guise, “The Boy” could have been anyone—a neighbor, a brother, a coworker or classmate. Naïve and unsuspecting, trouble found him everywhere he went. Enthusiastic moviegoers couldn’t wait to see what outrageous predicament he encountered next as he tried romancing his sweetheart.

  Beginning with Over the Fence (1917), Lloyd and Daniels so charmed the audience with their early romantic comedies that Lloyd eventually stopped making Lonesome Luke films altogether to concentrate on “The Boy.” His success allowed Roach to buy out Lithicum and change the name of his film company to Hal Roach Studios.

  Two years later, “The Boy” and “The Girl,” still a Hollywood couple, were filming two-reelers. Lloyd talked about his real-life romance with Daniels in his 1928 autobiography, An American Comedy:

  From the time we made the three pictures at San Diego in 1915, she and I had been pretty constant companions, one of our chief bonds of interest, a mutual love for dancing. For a year or two before the war, dancing for cups was a craze in the picture colony. Bebe and I won twenty cups or more in competition against Wally and Dorothy Reid, Gloria Swanson and Wallace Beery and many other movie couples …

  The dark-haired Daniels eventually grew tired of playing in comedies. She had always wanted a more serious acting career. Once her contract with Hal Roach ended in 1919, she left Lloyd both on-screen and off to work with Cecil B. DeMille who was still directing movies for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. Now, with his popularity on the upswing, Lloyd and “The Boy” both needed a new leading lady. Enter Mildred Hillary Davis.

  Roach recommended the petite blonde Philadelphian, often called “Mid,” to Lloyd. After seeing her on-screen, Lloyd thought that she looked like a “big French doll.” In addition to Davis, Roach hired her younger brother, Jack, to play one of The Little Rascals in the Our Gang comedies. Lloyd and Davis filmed their first feature together, From Hand to Mouth (1919), as “The Boy” and “The Girl.” Her youthful innocence complemented his unsuspecting naïvety and audiences fancied their wacky adventures.

  But the job also had its hazards. Posing for publicity pictures on August 24, 1919, the “prop” bomb he held for the camera suddenly exploded leaving Lloyd badly burned and blind. The freak accident blew off his thumb and index finger on his right hand. Doctors believed his recovery impossible, but nine months later, Lloyd surprised them all. His vision returned. His wounds healed. He donned a specially made glove to disguise his disfigured hand and went back to the studio to film Haunted Spooks (1920) with Davis. For the most part, audiences remained unaware of his permanent disability and that’s the way he liked it. Lloyd was afraid if the truth about his damaged hand leaked out, he would gain audience sympathy and forever lose their laughter.

  Over the next four years, Lloyd and Davis transitioned into five-reelers. They made a total of 15 movies together including several classics such as Grandma’s Boy (1922), Doctor Jack (1922) and Lloyd’s most famous film, Safety Last (1923).

  Inspired by real-life building scaler Bill Strothers, Lloyd created and filmed the classic scene where “The Boy” climbed a tall building in an effort to reach his ladylove who was waiting on the roof. Before he made it to the top, however, he was forced to grab the hands of a clock mounted to the building. Holding on to save himself from falling, he dangled over a busy city street. The rest of the story was written around this one scene because Lloyd never used a screenplay—at least until the talkies came along. “The Boy’s” unorthodox antics not only made the film audiences laugh out loud, but also made them hold their collective breath in suspense. How would their favorite son ever get out of this one?

  For Lloyd and Davis, their on-screen antics ironically ended with Safety Last, their final film together. He married his costar on February 10, 1923 effectively ending his tenure as one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors, as well as her career in filmmaking. The Lloyds had daughter Gloria the following year. Lloyd also parted on friendly terms with Roach to start his own production company, the Harold Lloyd Corporation. Wanting to keep things in the family, he brought in father Foxy as treasurer and brother Gaylord as casting director. Lloyd was quickly becoming one of the most influential and highl
y paid stars in Hollywood.

  With Milton Sills supporting modern-day dramas, Jack Holt disarming the Wild West and Harold Lloyd discovering that “The Boy” really can get “The Girl,” distinct film genres were evolving. Motion pictures were getting longer, but moviegoers didn’t seem to mind the extra time it took to watch a film. Plots were growing more complex, but audiences were up to the challenge. Worries over eyestrain and brain drain slowly dissipated as box office revenues continued to climb.

  Chapter Six

  THE IDOLS

  The word “matinée” is derived from the French word “matin” meaning “morning.” A matinée originally referred to a live theatrical performance, which took place during daylight hours—usually the afternoon. Well-to-do women, who picked up the moniker “matinée girls,” mostly attended these performances. During the daytime, male escorts weren’t required and wealthy ladies accompanied by other wealthy ladies thoroughly enjoyed their “girls only” outings. Critics claimed that these women came to the theater just to ogle their favorite leading men like the handsome Irish actor James O’Neill, father of playwright Eugene O’Neill.

  The elder O’Neill was a popular performer during the 1870s and 1880s. His dashing roles, such as Edmond Dantés in The Count of Monte Cristo, which he played thousands of times, so endeared him to the ladies that a reporter once dubbed him “the patron saint of the matinée girls.” Yet being idolized by these girls wasn’t exactly a compliment. The actor’s talent wasn’t always recognized—just his good looks.

 

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