With the evolution of movies, matinée idols could also be found on the silver screen. Handsome faces such as Wallace Reid, Rudolph Valentino and John Barrymore became some of Hollywood’s most popular leading men lionized by female fans. There were some prerequisites, of course. Matinee idols were two parts handsome and one part charming with a dash of debonair thrown in. They also possessed a keen sense of humor seasoned with a little pizzazz. Always smooth, alluring and fearless, they handled adversity the way they handled their women—with competence and a cool demeanor—even as the storyline turned against them. Heroes, lovers and good sons to their mothers, matinée idols oozed sex appeal, but their exclusive club had a limited membership.
Take Douglas Fairbanks, for example. He thoroughly enjoyed being Douglas Fairbanks. With a whirl of motion and an ever-present suntan, he delighted in the throngs of fans who greeted him around the world. Fairbanks lived large much like the way he made movies. His brother-inlaw, Jack Pickford, however, didn’t buy into that famous Fairbanks charm. He once told reporter Adela Rogers St. Johns that: “[Douglas] was always on.… He was always acting!” Well, not quite always. In the beginning, he was just the youngest son of an absentee father and a devoted mother.
When New York-born Ella Adelaide Marsh met wealthy and handsome John Fairbanks, she was enchanted. The couple married and in 1873 had a son, also named John. That same year, the elder John died from tuberculosis and his family lost his fortune. Ella hired Hezekiah Charles Ulman, her late husband’s friend and prominent New York lawyer, for legal assistance, but she couldn’t recoup any of John’s assets. Destitute, she took her young son to Georgia and moved in with her sister’s family.
In Georgia, she met and married Judge Edward Wilcox who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and a bad connubial choice. Despite her new husband’s shortcomings, Ella gave birth to another son, Norris. Soon after, she’d had enough and called upon Ulman’s services once more—this time for a divorce. With Ulman’s help, Ella dissolved her marriage while growing increasingly fond of her attorney.
Ulman, or H. Charles, as he preferred to be called, was born in Pennsylvania and served in the Union Army where he rose to the rank of captain during the Civil War. Rumor had it that he was Jewish and already wed, but Ella paid no mind to rumors. Besides, she was pregnant with Ulman’s child so the couple, along with John, Jr., rushed off to Colorado where they wed on September 7, 1881. Ulman claimed he headed west to make his fortune in the gold and silver mines, but he was most likely trying to keep his New York family far away from his new frontier family. Little Norris, left behind with an aunt, was never in the western picture, but Ella’s third son, Robert Paine Ulman, was born on March 2, 1882 in Denver.
Ella, who was used to the finer things in life, wasn’t happy in the Wild West. Her husband was often absent and like so many others, he much preferred the bottle to domesticity. Despite Ulman’s heavy drinking and his habitual disappearing acts, Ella managed to have one more boy—Douglas Elton who arrived on May 23, 1883. Ulman’s bad habits were not conducive to family life, but when he was home, he liked to attend the theater often taking young Douglas with him. As a result, Ulman unwittingly taught his son two valuable lessons—alcohol shattered lives and the stage offered escape.
By the time Douglas was five, Ulman had left his family and returned to New York where he worked on the 1888 presidential campaign of Benjamin Harrison. Ella took in borders to make ends meet. She went back to being a Fairbanks and changed Robert’s and Douglas’ last name to match hers. John, the eldest who was always a Fairbanks, worked while the younger boys attended school.
Douglas was not the most studious child—he much preferred amusing his fellow pupils with acrobatic antics and shenanigans like walking on his hands. Ella enrolled him in a local acting school hoping to put his entertainment skills to good use. After being expelled from East Denver High School, Fairbanks joined a touring theatrical company. By 1902, he found himself in New York hoping to join the ranks of the celebrated Barrymores and ‘the Divine’ Sarah Bernhardt. His dedicated mother was not far behind.
It didn’t happen overnight, but Fairbanks made a name for himself on Broadway in The Man of the Hour (1906). Once the show closed in New York, the troupe took it on the road. One of their stops was Boston where the twenty-five-year-old Fairbanks met nineteen-year-old Beth Sully, a starry-eyed matinée girl from the upper crust. Although Fairbanks’ mother approved of the match, the Sullys did not. Wealthy businessman Dan Sully liked his daughter’s beau, but taking a thespian into the family was not in his plan. He made Fairbanks a proposition—if the actor wanted to marry Beth, Fairbanks would have to give up the theater and help run the family business—the Buchanan Soap Company.
After a lavish wedding and a European honeymoon, Fairbanks kept his word and went to work for Sully’s soap company. The theater, however, kept calling. By August 1908, soap selling was a memory and he was back on the stage where his popularity grew. It was a good choice, since the soap company soon folded and Fairbanks now had a family to support. The couple’s only child, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., was born on December 9, 1909.
Fairbanks Senior loved the spotlight and the spotlight loved him. Audiences couldn’t get enough of his physical action and daring. When he joined ranks with the legendary showman George M. Cohan and his partner, Sam Harris, Fairbanks’ career reached a new high. Theater critic Percy Hammond described Fairbanks in the 1913 play Hawthorne of the USA:
Bounding, sprinting, diving, hurdling, he arrived in the last act in time to say “I love you” to the slim princess, as the curtain fell. Meantime Hawthorne, impersonated by Mr. Fairbanks, had also smashed the bank at Monte Carlo, arrested a regicide, escaped from jail, harangued a mob, acted as king for a few minutes, and had introduced slang and chewing gum into the Balkans. In one scene he pinched the Secretary of War, upset much of the army and kicked a seditious prince in the chest before jumping off a balcony for the second time in the act. It makes one breathless to write about it.
The stage, however, was a bit confining for someone with Fairbanks’ exuberance. In order to reach his full potential, he needed the unlimited expanse that movies offered. He just didn’t know it yet. Most legitimate theatrical performers in the early 1900s looked down upon the flickers—Fairbanks included. No real actor would ever leave the stage for such nonsense. Or would he?
In 1914, the Triangle Film Company, whose partners included filmmakers D.W. Griffith, Mack Sennett and Thomas Ince, offered Fairbanks a chance to make a motion picture. His wife thought that acting in a movie would hurt his stage career, as well as their social standing, but his mother encouraged him to grab the opportunity. He was torn, but Ella’s blessing and the offer of $2,000 per week helped change his mind. Due to prior theatrical commitments, however, Fairbanks had to postpone his motion picture work until the summer of 1915—after the release of Griffith’s groundbreaking film, Birth of a Nation (1915). That film’s success eased some of Fairbanks’ apprehensions about the legitimacy of movies and his upcoming career shift.
Leaving his wife and son in New York, he rode the rails to Hollywood. Upon his arrival, Griffith was not impressed with Fairbanks or his physical maneuvers. He thought the actor had a head like a cantaloupe and that he’d be better off joining Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops. Before Griffith relegated the energetic theater actor to slapstick, however, he cast Fairbanks in a comedy called The Lamb (1915). The final cut greatly disappointed Griffith. In his eyes, Fairbanks and his frolics just weren’t movie material, but even the master got things wrong on occasion. To everyone’s surprise, the film was a hit after its September 23, 1915 debut at New York’s Knickerbocker Theater. Fairbanks’ vitality, charisma and comedic timing excited audiences who had never seen anyone like him. The Triangle Film Company suddenly reconsidered their original position—maybe this Fairbanks fellow had something to offer after all.
Several weeks later, actress Elsie Janis invited the Fairbanks to her home in Yonkers. Also pr
esent were actor Owen Moore and his actress-wife, Mary Pickford, who was growing tired of Moore’s alcoholic habits. When Fairbanks met Pickford, in true Fairbanks style, he swept her off her feet—literally. That day as the group of five meandered around Janis’ property, they came upon a rather wide stream. Janis and Fairbanks nimbly skipped over some stones to the opposite bank. Moore clumsily followed. Mrs. Fairbanks was not so adventurous—she turned back. Pickford gave it a try, but soon perched atop a log, hesitant. As everyone watched, Fairbanks took matters, and Pickford, into his own hands. He picked her up and whisked her to the other side. His chivalrous gesture marked the beginning of their fabled romance even though they wouldn’t see each other again until the following year.
With his movie career on the rise, Fairbanks took his family to California while Pickford stayed in New York. By 1916, Fairbanks had made over a dozen films for Triangle along with a name for himself in the motion picture industry. For the next several years, thirty-something Fairbanks was cast as the contemporary, yet adventurous, fun-loving all-American boy.
To moviegoers, a Fairbanks film guaranteed a good time charged with eye-popping action. While dominating the screen, he always saved the innocent girl from the evil cad in between a cache of stunts. Fairbanks once discussed his second film Double Trouble (1915): “… I ran a car off a cliff, had six rounds with a pro pugilist, jumped off an Atlantic liner, fought six gunmen at once and leapt off a speeding train.”
With success, however, came sorrow. Late in 1916, Fairbanks was summoned to New York where his beloved mother, Ella, unexpectedly died of pneumonia. Her death hit Fairbanks hard, but he kept his emotions in check until after the funeral. Pickford, who cherished her own mother, sent him a sympathy note. Fairbanks then came calling and the couple took a drive through Central Park where he suddenly stopped the car and sobbed, for once letting his guard down. Pickford was deeply moved. She also noticed that the clock in the car had stopped. They believed it was Ella giving them a nod from beyond. The term “by the clock” became their mantra. Pickford soon left New York and went west to join Fairbanks permanently.
One year after Douglas Fairbanks filmed The Lamb (1915) for Triangle Films, theater actor Richard Semler Barthelmess made his first movie, War Brides (1916). Barthelmess was named after his paternal grandfather, a doctor who migrated to the United States from Bavaria in 1852. Barthelmess was born in New York near Central Park West on May 9, 1895. His father, Alfred, was a successful businessman and former member of the National Guard. One year later, Alfred died at the age of 35 leaving his wife, Caroline, to care for herself and her baby.
In addition to taking in boarders, Caroline worked in the theater under the last name of Harris. Growing up watching his mother perform onstage, Barthelmess thought he’d follow in her footsteps. After graduating from high school, he joined a summer touring company and traveled throughout Canada. That fall, he attended Hartford, Connecticut’s Trinity College, but never earned his degree. Instead, his mother’s good friend, the Russian-born actress Alla Nazimova, gave him a small role in her movie War Brides. The film’s director, Herbert Brenon, was impressed enough to offer Barthelmess a one-year contract at $50 per week. Even with a degree, the young man knew he’d never get a better offer. Trinity College was history.
For the next three years, Barthelmess worked in almost two dozen films. Leading man status eluded him until 1919, when D.W. Griffith cast him opposite actress Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms (1919). Aided by a little make-up and a tight rubber band hidden under his cap, Barthelmess plays young Asian missionary Cheng Huan, living in England. He takes in Lucy Burrows, a battered twelve-year-old London girl (played by the adult Gish) who is repeatedly beaten by her prizefighter father. Gentle and caring, Huan provides her with a safe place to stay until her racist father finds her with the Oriental man and ultimately kills her. Devastated over her death, Huan shoots her evil father, takes the child’s body back to his room and then kills himself. The drama catapulted Barthelmess from bit player to matinée idol making him one of the silver screen’s most popular bachelors.
It’s no wonder public concern turned to panic when it was reported that he and over thirty others disappeared along with D.W. Griffith onboard the 60-foot yacht, Grey Duck, in December 1919. The group set sail from Miami where they had been filming and headed for Nassau. A hurricane-like storm blew near the Florida coast interrupting their journey, which normally should have taken about twelve hours. When the yacht did not reach port in Nassau, it was feared that the Grey Duck and her illustrious guests might have been lost at sea.
Seaplanes laden with supplies went looking for them during daylight hours with no luck. Even Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, sent ships to search the waters, but to no avail. A few days later, the yacht wobbled in to the Nassau port. Lacking communication, they had found safe harbor at Whale Key where they had waited out the storm. According to the New York Times, a wireless message sent to the Miami Herald reported:
Grey Duck arrived late today driven by a heavy gale. D.W. Griffith and party safe, but three days without food, and little water. Two of the party were swept overboard, but were rescued. The boat nearly capsized twice in the Northwest channel. The pilot was injured and others were forced to take their turns at the wheel, while the helpless boat drifted far from her course …
In later years, however, Barthelmess explained that although the disappearance was definitely not a publicity stunt, he was not onboard the Grey Duck when the incident occurred, but safe in Miami with his mother. They later joined the group in Nassau once the weather cleared.
Six months after the seafaring adventure, Barthelmess dropped his bachelor status when he married actress Mary Hay Caldwell, whom he had met while working on Way Down East (1920). D.W. Griffith brought her into the picture because of her resemblance to actress Clarine Seymour who died unexpectedly before filming was finished. The eighteen-year-old Texas dancer was also a Ziegfeld girl and the daughter of Brigadier General Frank Merrill Caldwell. Although she found some success onstage, her movie career ended after only four films.
For Barthelmess, Way Down East paired him up once again with Lillian Gish and secured his place in movie history. He will forever be remembered as the brave Galahad who saved the freezing Gish from those raging rapids. Clad in a raccoon coat, our hero jumps from ice floe to ice floe trying to reach the maiden in distress as the fast-moving current carries her toward a perilous waterfall where certain death awaits her.
That famous scene was filmed at White River Junction in Vermont where the ice was so thick it had to be sawed and dynamited to create the necessary floes. Gish herself decided that letting her hair and hand drag along in the icy water would add to the excitement. It took three weeks for Griffith to get the shots exactly as he wanted. Barthelmess later recalled:
Not once, but twenty times a day, Lillian floated down on a cake of ice, and I made my way to her stepping from one cake to another, to rescue her. I had on a heavy fur coat, and if I had slipped, or if one of the cakes had cracked and let me through, my chances would not have been good.… I would not make that picture again for any money that a producer would be willing to pay for it.
It took the wise Gish to remind him that they weren’t doing it for the money.
Two years after Douglas Fairbanks and Richard Barthelmess made their motion picture debut, Conrad Nagel made his first film. He played Laurie Laurence in Little Women (1918), which was based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel of the same name. Nagel was born into a musical household in Keokuk, Iowa on March 16, 1897. His father, Frank, was a noted pianist as well as a composer and conductor. Nagel’s mother, Frances Murphy, was a singer. Both parents encouraged their son’s interest in the theater.
Nagel attended Highland Park College in Des Moines where his father had been named Dean of the Music Department. Dean Nagel was so well respected in his field that the school also honored him with a doctorate degree in music. As a student, the younger Nagel appeared
in school plays and was a member of the glee club. He also liked sports and belonged to both the football and track teams. Nagel studied under the well-known dramatic reader Edna Means who was the Dean of the Oratory Department.
After graduating in 1914 with a degree in the School of Oratory, he took on a few odd jobs—bricklayer, hotel key clerk and telephone operator. The call of the boards was stronger, however, and he soon joined the local Princess Stock Company where he appeared onstage with future movie star Fay Bainter. The Princess, which was built in 1909, was one of the first theaters to boast air conditioning—blasting air that skimmed across ice blocks. Nagel eventually left the theatrical company for vaudeville before breaking into Broadway. His successful stage career was temporarily interrupted during World War I when he served in the U.S. Navy on board the U.S.S. Seattle under Rear Admiral Albert Cleaves.
The Seattle was primarily used for transporting American troops to the European front. On her first trip out, her helm jammed and she veered off course. Crewmembers blew the whistle to warn other nearby ships. Once the armored cruiser regained her position, several seamen noticed an enemy submarine in the water near her bow. As it turned out, two German U-boats had been covertly following the American ship, fully intending to attack. The submarines dashed off when they heard the whistle blowing thinking they had been detected. The Seattle continued escorting troops without incident for the duration of the war.
After his stint in the service, Nagel began working in films. He also married his sweetheart Ruth Emily Helms in June 1919. The newlyweds took a month-long honeymoon in Maine. The following year their daughter, Ruth Margaret, was born.
Standing six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, Nagel’s matinée idol status was soon guaranteed. His breakout role came in The Fighting Chance (1920) when he starred opposite former model turned actress Anna Q. Nilsson. The Swedish-born beauty was a veteran moviemaker whose first film, Molly Pitcher, was released in 1911. In The Fighting Chance, Nilsson is rich girl Sylvia Landis who falls in love with heavy drinker Stephen Siward played by Nagel. Landis leaves him for a wealthy but unscrupulous man. In the end, however, she returns to her first love and in true Hollywood fashion, straightens him out. Nagel’s wife also had a role in this film—the only movie she ever made.
Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy Page 8