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Chapter 3

The Bosworth complex on Occidental was, for its time, state of the art. It had been built from the ground up as a year-round studio, in contrast to the many other companies that used vacant buildings on the empty lots during the winter months. (The term “shooting on the lot” came about because that is exactly what they were doing.)

The executive office building was two stories of steel and concrete and housed the accounting department, scenario writers, and editors. A theater was attached to the laboratory where thousands of feet of film were printed each day. There was a carpenter’s shop and a huge property room with a door designed so trucks could load up the sets and roll them directly onto the stage. A glass roof opened or was covered with canvas to allow for ventilation and a release of the intense heat from the lights that plagued other studios.¹

Lois Weber was in the middle of Traitor when Frances started working at Bosworth. She did whatever needed doing: writing press releases, moving furniture on the sets, painting backgrounds, and mastering the art of cutting film. She learned to respect continuity and ensure that the same prop was held in the same hand when scenes were shot out of sequence. One of her first friends at Bosworth was a young man with a similar sense of responsibility, a fellow San Franciscan named Sidney Franklin, and Frances said, “No one would have been surprised to see us sweeping the floor.”²

Bosworth’s cameraman George Hill, the first cinematographer to see his name on the screen in the credits for The Sea Wolf, became enamored of Frances. He was tall, good-looking, and seven years younger than she, but Frances was not about to enter a serious relationship. Robert was spending more of his time in San Francisco and she was practically living at the studio so it was easy to postpone dealing with their failing marriage.³

In addition to her role as Lois’s assistant, Frances appeared in front of the camera, but for a reason she found acceptable: the sophistication of the moviegoing audiences was growing and word was filtering back that it was not only the deaf who read lips. Extras were being caught in conversations totally unrelated to the action, and with Lois’s zeal for detail, she asked Frances to write pertinent lines of dialogue for the extras to say and then work among them in costume. Dressed as “a gypsy, barmaid, nun, prisoner and slut,” she consoled herself with the knowledge that she was actually writing for films, even if it was mostly one-liners.

Her every skill and experience were called upon, including horseback riding when she doubled for the star Winifred Kingston in Captain Courtesy, an action-packed “Robin Hood in early California” five-reeler. And when Lois asked her to create a stage name for her newest “starlet” from Kansas, Olga Kronk, she “suggested ‘Claire’ because she was a natural blonde with delicate features and light complexion and ‘Windsor’ because she suggested aristocracy.” Frances worked longer hours for less pay than she ever dreamed she would, loving most of it and continuously learning.⁴

While other directors simply attached themselves to outdoor events, Lois approached the owners of lavish residences in respectable neighborhoods and arranged to “rent” their homes for a few days. These realistic backgrounds added authenticity and saved the company time and money by not having to create their own scenery, yet filming this way required that all the action set against that background be completed at one time, often out of sequence.⁵

Frances developed a deep respect for Lois Weber’s abilities and a fierce loyalty to her. The responsibilities Lois took on were daunting to say the least; directing, producing, writing, casting, editing, and acting, all with a determination and a dedication that went beyond mere work ethic. Although Frances was almost “irreligious,” she and Lois shared a strong compassion for the abused underdog.

Ardent in her beliefs, Lois was often mistakenly taken to be a Christian fundamentalist, but she was more of a libertarian, opposing censorship and the death penalty and championing birth control. The need for a strong, loving, and nurturing home was clearly promoted as well and if there was a single maxim that underlay each film it was that selfishness and egocentricity erode the individual and the community.

Many of the films she made at Universal focused on a moral topic, such as prejudice in The Jew’s Christmas, and wife beating in His Brand, but it was at Bosworth that she became known for her “Big Theme” films. Hypocrites, a four-reel allegorical drama that Lois wrote and directed soon after Frances arrived at Bosworth, was the most controversial and, not incidentally, the most profitable. The recurring presence of “Truth,” portrayed as a naked woman, provoked a censorship debate and massive press coverage, but when it was eventually released throughout the country, her fame was cemented. “After seeing Hypocrites,” said Variety, “you can’t forget the name of Lois Weber.”⁶

To Frances’s surprise and pleasure, the studio was expanded to include Oliver Morosco. In spite of his protestations against the flickers only a few years before, it was a natural business move to turn his repertoire of plays into films. Charlotte Greenwood came with him and having the comedienne around the studio added to the fun.

In the three years she had been in Los Angeles, Frances had witnessed significant changes. There were now dozens of studios and their ripple effect on the local economy could no longer be ignored. While there were still occasional outbursts from the righteous, most of the former “Constipated Citizens” were too busy counting their money to object further. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce proudly announced that over 15,000 locals “were supported by the industry” that brought over $15 million to the area. Hotels were booming, restaurants were packed, and new neighborhoods were popping up where only sagebrush had thrived before.⁷

New talent was always being sought and Elsie Janis, a popular young vaudevillian and Broadway comedy star famous for her impersonations, arrived at the Bosworth studios in the fall of 1914. She had been headlining at the Palace Theatre in London, but along with many other Americans visiting overseas, returned to the States when the European war broke out.

Elsie made four films in four months at Bosworth and while she and Frances became friends immediately, it was harder to warm up to Elsie’s mother, Josephine. Insisting everyone call her Ma, she rarely left her daughter’s side and, in a voice that reminded Frances of a honking goose, had her say about everything, including sets, costumes, and casts. But soon Frances saw that while some people were afraid of her or even actively disliked her, Ma was quietly generous and thoughtful to the extras, dressmakers, and musicians—people from whom reciprocity was impossible in any way except through gratitude and devotion.⁸

Ma Janis decided that refined type or not, Frances should be cast as one of the cavewomen in ’Twas Ever Thus. They trooped out to Chatsworth Park, thirty miles north of Los Angles, to film, and with Elsie playing “Lithesome” and titles that read, “Fearless women of the Stone Age who fought and died alongside their men,” Frances was grateful that her small part called for her face to be covered with mud.⁹

Elsie was drawn to Frances’s ribald sense of humor and encouraged her to help write her comedies. Elsie made light of the work, but she openly depended on the discipline of people like Frances and Sidney Franklin, whom Elsie took to calling “George Detail” because he followed her around the set saying, “You had your handkerchief in your left hand in the last shot, Miss Janis.”¹⁰

Owen Moore was hired to play opposite Elsie and Frances was appalled as she watched the young extras clamoring to be in scenes with him. He intimated to Elsie that his marriage was virtually over, but when Mary Pickford returned to California in November and caught them holding hands on the set, she was furious. Mary had known Elsie since they played Shea’s Theater in Toronto together as children in 1899, but she didn’t trust her with her husband. Mary continued to drop by often to keep an eye on Owen and she and Frances began to solidify their friendship.¹¹

In January of 1915, Elsie returned to London to entertain the English troops and Hobart Bosworth left the company that bore his name. He had been ill for several months and the doctors warned him that without complete rest, his tuberculosis might return. The press reported that Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley “were not happy” at the studio without Bosworth and in early April they met with Carl Laemmle, the president of Universal, who was in town for the official opening of his new, sprawling Universal City.¹²

The Smalleys returned to Universal with the assurance that they would be producing multireel “feature pictures,” a concession for Laemmle who was devoted to shorter films. He claimed long features were doomed because “every exhibitor I talk to will be only too glad when they come back to one or two reels and once in a while a three reel feature.” In spite of the success of The Sea Wolf and the Italian film Quo Vadis? Laemmle’s attitude was shared by many, including William Selig, who was adamant that “the single reel photo drama is the keystone of the motion picture industry.” Universal would continued to produce two-reelers into the twenties, but even their most dogmatic supporters had their assumptions challenged on February 8, 1915, with the premiere of D. W. Griffith’s The Clansman.¹³

Soon to be known by its subtitle, “The Birth of a Nation,” The Clansman provoked so much discussion because of its length, epic scope, and photography, as well as its controversial storyline, that it became a “must see” even for people who had never been to a movie theater before. To those who worked in the business, any residual tendency to apologize for their profession vanished. The film brought a sense of collective pride and accomplishment and suggested a new level of potential for creative fulfillment.

Frances was among the multitude swept away with enthusiasm for the grandeur of The Clansman, yet as sure as she was of her love of moviemaking, she was still unclear as to how she fit in. Lois Weber offered to take her with her to Universal, but Frances decided it was time to strike out on her own. She received an offer from the two-year-old Balboa studio in Long Beach, which was expanding its writing department and turning to women in its search for new talent.¹⁴

She understood why there were so many successful women writers; it was a creative outlet achieved in private and required relatively little bravado. Women’s novels were best-sellers, short stories by women filled popular magazines, and women writers were commonplace in the film industry. Yet no one knew the exact number because many stories were mailed directly to the film companies and a ten- or twenty-five-dollar check was sent back with a receipt and a release form. Seldom was there a writer’s credit on the screen.

Alice Guy Blaché had started as a secretary for Gaumont in Paris and risen to be a successful director at Solax in New Jersey. While acknowledging “strong prejudice” still existed, she claimed that “there is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man.” Movie magazines ran scenario contests and writing advice columns. A scenario writer for Essanay in Chicago, one Louella O. Parsons, had just published How to Write for the Movies and it was selling briskly at a dollar a copy. Scenario writing was touted as “a new profession for women” and Marguerite Bertsch, Daisy Smith, Catherine Carr, and Josephine Recot were highlighted in the press as names to watch. In fact, women were at every level of moviemaking, but an important reason they were welcomed and appreciated and even occasionally nurtured and promoted from within was that movies were not taken seriously as a business.¹⁵

Yet once Frances was ensconced at Balboa, she found “the promise of a writing job was as empty as a blown egg.” She was paid all right—to play minor roles in westerns and costume dramas. She couldn’t understand it. When she watched herself on the screen, she saw “a tall, gawky girl whose waving arms looked like two busy windmills, a stranger who made a few grimaces and then dashed off again.” Her only solace was the new friends she was making, especially another scenario writer, Bess Meredyth.¹⁶

Bess had been precociously enterprising as a young girl in her hometown of Buffalo, New York, where her father managed a local theater. Born Helen Elizabeth MacGlashin, she became a talented pianist in her teens and spent a year with several maiden aunts in Detroit. Her parents were pleased with her musical accomplishments, but horrified when one of the aunts began touring with a group known as The Ladies Whistling Chorus. The red-headed, vivacious Bess returned to Buffalo to play concert piano, but discovered her true métier by winning a writing contest sponsored by the local newspaper. She was paid a dollar for each of her daily columns and after what she called a marriage that lasted “five and a half minutes” she took her savings and set out on a national concert tour.¹⁷

Arriving in Los Angeles in the winter of 1911, Bess found work as an extra with Biograph and took the stage name of Meredyth from her family tree. She realized she could make more money if she wrote scenarios in addition to acting and jumped between assignments for several studios, churning out one-reelers, serials, and action dramas.

Bess and Frances shared a strong sense of humor and fierce ambition. Both women viewed their earliest marriages as minor indiscretions, but Frances felt a pang of jealousy over Bess’s freedom, living alone in a bungalow at the foot of the Hollywood hills, surrounded by her dogs, with a room of her own to write in. Engaged to Wilfred Lucas, a young actor and director with whom she shared her passion for films, Bess seemed so confident that the next job would always be right around the corner.¹⁸

And it didn’t help when Frances visited Universal and Lois Weber chided her for not coming with her. Her Morosco friends Lon Chaney and Bob Leonard were there as well as Hobart Bosworth, sufficiently recovered to act in films and free from the burdens of running his own studio. It seemed that everyone but Frances was sure of the path they were taking.¹⁹

Suffering from professional self-doubt only intensified Frances’s awareness of how little she had in common with Robert. They had hardly seen each other over the past year since his father closed his Los Angeles office in 1914. Robert returned to San Francisco and they both admitted there was no reason to keep up the pretense of a relationship. Claiming responsibility for the failure of her marriage, Frances refused any financial settlement. She told herself she should have known better than to marry someone to whom society and respectability were so consequential. Although her San Francisco roots would always be important to her, for better or worse, Los Angeles was home.

Knowing Frances was unhappy at Balboa and in her marriage, Mary Pickford offered her a job. Frances did not want to act, but if everyone was going to keep propelling her in front of the camera, she preferred to work with people she liked and respected. “When Mary said, ‘We’ll have fun together,’ all my resistance fled and I signed on the dotted line.” She would be paid to act, but Mary promised to let her work on the scenarios as well.

Frances moved into a bungalow in the same courtyard where Mary and her mother were living. Charlotte Pickford viewed living on the West Coast as a temporary situation. Perusing the still developing neighborhoods of Los Angeles, she invested Mary’s income in land but not houses and insisted they continue renting. The poverty of their earlier years influenced every decision Charlotte made and she made all the decisions.

The rooms in the bungalows were small, the overhead lights were too bright, and the plaster on the walls looked like “an advanced stage of smallpox,” but there were spacious vine-covered porches to enjoy on warm evenings. All in all, Frances considered the change a small price to pay for her freedom and at twenty-six with two marriages behind her, she was truly on her own for the first time in her adult life. It felt a bit precarious, but living near and working with Mary was a dream come true.

Charlotte and Frances liked each other immediately. Whereas others saw Charlotte as an oppressive influence, Frances saw genuine love and caring and in turn, Mary’s mother welcomed her daughter’s having a real friend and confidante. And being with Mary every day deepened Frances’s appreciation for her discipline and experience.²¹

Mary had been making movies since she presented herself as an experienced Broadway actress to D. W. Griffith at Biograph, a former mansion turned studio in lower Manhattan, in April of 1909. A frustrated stage actor who had turned to directing a little over a year before Mary arrived on the doorstep, Griffith had already made more than one hundred films. Mary knew movies were a comedown, but it was the off season and money had to be made. The five dollars a day Biograph was paying would not be sufficient; “I must have ten,” Mary announced with such surety that Griffith agreed to pay. She was immediately put to work in Her First Biscuits, a three-quarter-reel comedy, and in less than a year, she appeared in almost fifty movies.²²

Under Griffith’s direction, and through working with his cameraman Billy Bitzer, Mary learned the technical side of moviemaking. During the filming of Friends, Bitzer physically moved the camera in toward the stage so that only Mary’s face and upper body filled the lens; the term “close-up” was being added to the vocabulary and the distinction between the stage and film was being formalized. Cameras had been moved since early cinema, but Griffith “used it with such finesse and with such emotional power that it was easy to imagine he invented the close-up.”²³

Frances and Mary were at the Famous Players studio on Melrose by seven every morning and Frances devoted herself to writing and watching as she worked on the scenarios with Mary, her director James Kirkwood, and her costar Mickey Neilan. They quickly turned out Fanchon the Cricket, Little Pal, and Rags before Frances was cast as “the wicked sophisticate” Rosanna Danforth who has her eye on Mary’s beau in A Girl of Yesterday.²⁴

In her role as a vamp, Frances was called upon to woo a pilot and Glenn Martin, a local aviator, was hired. Flying a plane was an everyday occurrence for Martin, but once filming had started, he claimed “nobody told me I’d have to kiss girls.” He refused to go through with that part of the plot “because my mother wouldn’t like it,” until the Famous Players studio head, Adolph Zukor himself, came on location to Griffith Park and insisted Martin give Frances at least a little peck.²⁵

Frances took it all in good humor and had a great time, especially when the cameras weren’t rolling. The huge yacht of the San Francisco multimillionare John D. Spreckles was featured in some particularly luxurious scenes and she enjoyed their director Allan Dwan, who had been working in films for over five years.²⁶

Dwan sincerely liked people and was secure enough in his own abilities to include others in the process. The friendly atmosphere extended to his inviting everyone to his wedding to the actress Pauline Bush in San Juan Capistrano during a weekend break. Inspired by the church mission and in a burst of regret over the secret surroundings of their own wedding, Mary and Owen asked the priest to renew their vows in a Catholic ceremony. The service struck Frances as halfhearted at best. She knew how little time they spent together and had seen too much of Owen’s behavior and Mary’s unhappiness to put any faith in a ritual.²⁷

After shooting was finished each day, Frances worked on her own scenario for Mary, entitled The Foundling. She opened the story by establishing that twelve-year-old Mary, the cheerful favorite of all the other children in the orphanage, has been abandoned after her mother died in childbirth and her artist father is unable to face raising the daughter alone. Mary is soon adopted by the proprietor of a boardinghouse, who brusquely informs her, “I didn’t bring you here to mother you, I brought you here to work.” Mary runs away and through a twist of fate, goes to work for her real father as a maid. After more complications, the truth is revealed and the father properly chastises himself: “My poor little girl with the toil worn hands. I’ll make up for all my neglect if you will forgive me.” The camera fades out on Mary’s glowing face, smiling through her tears.²⁸

There were similarities in The Foundling to several of the films Frances had worked on at Bosworth, such as Lois Weber’s False Colors, where a child is forced into adoption under comparable circumstances. But if mistaken identities and rags-to-riches plots were overused, Mary knew that Frances’s scenario gave her a breadth of opportunities to display her comedic and dramatic skills. She passed the script on to Adolph Zukor and when Frances was paid $125 for her script, “I ceased walking on this earth.”²⁹

The Foundling was to be shot in New York, where Famous Players and many of the larger companies were still based. Mary encouraged Frances to join them, but she pled poverty. She had already developed the habit, after paying the rent and sending money home to her mother, of spending the remainder on clothes, friends, and good times. Yet she regretted her decision when she saw Mary, Charlotte, and the crew off at the train station in late June, and promised to get to New York in time for the premiere.

Mary kept her posted on the filming; Allan Dwan was again her director and Frank Mills, Harry Ham, Gertrude Norman, and Donald Crisp rounded out the cast. She assured Frances that the best way to determine how a film was going was to watch the crew, and on The Foundling set, everyone was relaxed and enjoying themselves.³⁰

Frances continued to write short stories and several were published, including “The Fisher Girl,” which Equitable bought for their leading lady, Clara Whipple. It was a nice windfall and when Balboa offered Frances a costarring role in a Monte Blue western, she stashed what she could of the $200 salary and used the rest to buy a train ticket for New York City.

The five days it took to cross the country on the train gave Frances plenty of time for reflection, but she tried not to second-guess what was awaiting her. She arrived at the recently opened Grand Central Station and walked to her destination, a few blocks away. Mary had reserved a room for her at “the only place to stay,” the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street.³¹

By the fall of 1915, the Algonquin was already known as a home for creative spirits. Frank Case had been running the hotel for over ten years, starting before the completion of what was originally designed as an apartment building. So few chambers were leased that they began renting on a weekly and then daily basis, creating a unique atmosphere. Renowned for his charm and friendliness, Case welcomed writers and actors above all others. He called his love of show people a “progressive disease” first inflicted upon him as a young boy when he had worked at different times as an usher in all three of Buffalo’s theaters.³²

As Frances signed the registration book, she was suddenly intimidated and told the clerk that the small bag she was carrying held only her overnight things. The trunks, she assured him, would follow. Yet she was bathed in a feeling of exhilaration and relief to be finally in New York. Instead of coming with Robert to study art, she had made it on her own and just two weeks before, The Foundling had received a rave review in Moving Picture World’s section on upcoming films. The article fawned over Mary, “the world’s foremost motion picture star,” and while not mentioning Frances by name, the reviewer found that “the photoplay absorbingly unfolded, not however until a number of tense dramatic situations and a series of novel incidents have been developed.”³³

She called Mary at the studio and learned she would not be home for at least an hour. Brimming with energy and “full of dreams, plans and kindled ambitions,” Frances decided to walk. Map in hand, she turned up Broadway and saw that even after six months of consecutive screenings, a line was beginning to form for the evening showing of The Birth of a Nation. Crowds were growing in front of another theater down the street where large posters portrayed Theda Bara with her hands on an older man in a tuxedo and top hat with the tag line “Kiss me, you fool.” Frances shook her head in bewilderment; her love-hate relationship with the movies was already setting in.

When she arrived at the Pickford apartment on Riverside Drive, Mary opened the door with tears in her eyes and hugged Frances tightly.

“Darling,” Mary said, “I have terrible news for you; the negative of The Foundling was burned in a laboratory fire before any prints were made.”³⁴

A little before seven on the previous Saturday evening, a fire had broken out on the second floor of 213 West 26th Street. The flames quickly spread to the third and fourth floor, where the Famous Players studios, offices, and prop department were housed. The three lone late-working employees escaped through the windows without serious injury, but it wasn’t until Monday that the fire department allowed Adolph Zukor and his laboratory manager Frank Meyer in to assess the damage and open the vaults where the negatives were stored. The entire property department of period furniture and costumes accumulated over the past three years was gone and ten of the eleven finished films being held for distribution were all or partially destroyed.

It was a major setback for the company, but they were recovering quickly. Filming was shuttled to a studio in Yonkers, offices were opened within days at the Columbia Bank Building on Fifth Avenue, and Adolph Zukor hired double shifts of workers to build a new studio on 225th Street.³⁵

For Frances, the loss was devastating. The Foundling negative was burned beyond repair and she had counted on a successful New York premiere to help her obtain a writing contract. Mary assured her The Foundling would be remade eventually, and feeling responsible for her being in New York, offered her a role in her next scheduled film, Madame Butterfly.

There was no doubting Mary’s sincerity, but Frances already felt in debt to Mary for taking a chance on her and was uncomfortable with any further favors. She knew it would be some time before The Foundling was reshot; Allan Dwan had left to work with another studio, so not only would time have to be found in Mary’s schedule but a new director as well. Besides, Frances didn’t want to act, she wanted to write. There was little or no public credit, but she actually found comfort in the anonymity and fulfillment from the accomplishment of telling a story well.

She thanked Mary and promised to think about it, but vowed to herself she would not return to California. She was already captivated by the mix of theater, art, and films that New York radiated; even without a produced film to point to, she would figure out a way to stay.³⁶

Mary may have been her only real friend in New York, but Frances had brought several letters of introduction for insurance. The most promising of her potential contacts were Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Fiske—the editor of the Dramatic Mirror and his actress wife, whom she had met in Arnold Genthe’s studio. Minnie Maddern Fiske was an established star of theater and she would do anything for her favorite photographer, “Ginky.”

When Frances called, their niece Merle invited her to lunch. Mrs. Fiske was in Washington rehearsing a play, but Merle and Harrison Fiske were enthralled by Frances’s stories of Hollywood and the movies. The Dramatic Mirror had been reviewing films since 1907 and Mrs. Fiske had reprised her Broadway role of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair before the movie cameras for Kleine-Edison. The Fiskes viewed motion pictures as “an art form that has not yet found itself,” but believed that “its possibilities reach beyond the boundaries of the imagination.” Merle was the same age as Frances and they became friendly immediately.³⁷

Both Merle and her uncle were confident they could help Frances find a job in New York, but they were about to leave to join Mrs. Fiske in Washington. Frances knew she needed something right away, but tried not to appear deflated. To hide her concern, she assured them she had an alternative plan and as she was about to divulge that she could pass as a professional cook, the doorbell rang. As other company was being ushered in, Frances left, telling Merle she looked forward to seeing her again soon.

Frances tried her luck with the various New York film studios, but after a long week of knocking on production office doors and fruitless waits for calls that didn’t come, she knew she had to conserve her resources. The Algonquin was two dollars a day and she had only thirty dollars left. She moved to a cheaper hotel downtown and on the way, ducked into the Hotel Astor and slipped some of their stationery into her bag.³⁸

In a burst of courage born of desperation, Frances wrote individual letters on the Astor letterhead to the prominent New York producers Daniel Frohman, William Fox, and William Brady. Introducing herself as an experienced scenario writer who had worked with Lois Weber, she informed them that since The Foundling negative had been burned and The Fisher Girl was only now being filmed, she proposed to prove her worth by working for two weeks at no salary. Assuming “the results are satisfactory,” she would be willing to accept a one-year contract at $200 a week. She closed by saying she would call in a few days to arrange a personal appointment.³⁹

The highest-paid scenario writer in 1915 was C. Gardner Sullivan, providing plots for cowboy star William S. Hart at $75 a week, so she was frankly amazed when both Fox and Brady agreed to see her. Frances waited an hour in William Fox’s anteroom with a variety of other aspirants, watching as his stern-faced secretary, whom Frances mentally nicknamed “The Judge,” informed each of those leaving, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Finally it was her turn to be ushered in and Frances found a little man sitting behind a desk who seemed to methodically undress her with his eyes.

Trying to ignore the implication, Frances poured out her meager qualifications, mixing them with substantive suggestions for scenarios and productions. But Fox’s response was to tell her that such a pretty girl should be wearing beautiful furs and jewelry, not thinking about a lowly writing job. “Well,” he asked, smiling meaningfully, “what do you think?”

In spite of a combination of nerves and irritation, Frances smiled back. “I’m paid to think, Mr. Fox; two hundred dollars a week. As a scenario writer.”

He laughed as if he would dismiss her completely, then offered her eighty dollars a week. Frances was simultaneously shocked and thrilled, but tempted though she was, it wasn’t on her terms. Unable to bring herself to say no outright, she demurred with “Thank you very much, Mr. Fox, I’ll consider your offer.”

But as she left the inner sanctum and heard The Judge’s “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” Frances had second thoughts. Fox had referred to writers as “poor schlemiels” and he was right. She told herself that any fool, especially a hungry one, who turned down eighty dollars a week was nothing but a “poor schlemiel.” She was sure William Brady would have the same reaction, and she had no one to blame but herself.⁴⁰

What Frances didn’t know was that William Brady proudly called himself “a born gambler.” Originally from San Francisco, Brady gravitated toward the theater, where he met another aspiring actor, James Corbett, at an amateur show. Convincing Corbett that the quickest route to recognition was as a heavyweight boxer, Brady became his manager. Leasing the sedate Drury Lane Theatre for “Gentleman Jim” Corbett’s London boxing debut, they traveled all over Europe and America and Brady became known as the “veritable apotheosis of the word promoter” with “enough brass for an entire marching band.” He added other fighters to his management roster and took over the Metropolitan Opera House for a wrestling match. If it was on the stage, Brady loved it.⁴¹

William Brady was fifty-three years old and had already made and lost several fortunes when Frances’s inquiry arrived. He had produced dozens of Broadway plays over the past twenty years and owned and operated several theaters in New York and Chicago. Introduced to moving pictures when he sold the rights to a boxing match in 1897, he quickly realized that producing was the only source of unlimited profits, so he had welcomed Lewis Selznick’s proposal to form a partnership to film Brady’s plays.⁴²

The Kiev-born Selznick was a promoter at heart, but his experience had been limited to selling jewelry when he talked his way into Universal’s New York offices in 1912. World was a distribution agency for independent films when he joined them as vice president and general manager in 1914 but by convincing theater producer Lee Shubert and then Brady to invest in the studio and put their plays on the screen, Selznick built World into a major player.

The same week Frances wrote her letters, Brady, Selznick, Shubert, and the board of directors of World had celebrated the company’s one-year anniversary. They were committed to releasing three feature films a week and announced expansion plans for their Fort Lee, New Jersey, studios that included a state-of-the-art laboratory for both black-and-white film and experimenting with “natural colors.”

World Films attracted a relatively experienced stable of actors including former Vitagraph darling Clara Kimball Young and established Broadway stars Robert Warwick, William Farnum, and Alice Brady. Lillian Russell had made her screen debut in World’s production of Wildfire. Veteran French film directors Emile Chautard, Albert Capellani, and Maurice Tourneur, along with art director Ben Carré, all joined World when the American branches of their film companies foundered with the onslaught of the European war. With the imprimatur of so many Broadway hits on their list of releases, World had built-in publicity for their feature films at a time when other studios were flailing for material. What they needed most at that moment were writers skilled at adapting plays into screen scenarios and creating original stories.⁴³

Frances knew little of the studio’s situation when she set her sights on World, but she heard William Brady was a tough Irishman from San Francisco who did not suffer fools gladly; she steeled herself accordingly.

When she arrived for her meeting at the World offices at 130 West 46th Street, she was told Brady was expecting her, but he was still at one of his theaters rehearsing a new play. The young man on duty gave her a card of introduction and after walking two blocks down Broadway, Frances was led through the dark to a man seated alone in the fifth row. He never gave her a glance as he directed a rehearsal of The Man Who Came Back, starring a tall, young newcomer named Conrad Nagel. For more than an hour, Frances watched what she thought was an exceptional if exhausting performance and when the actors were finally dismissed, the man to her right turned as if she had just arrived and asked, “Who in the devil are you?”

She started to fumble her words after introducing herself and was saved by Brady’s wide smile. He told her he had been amused and intrigued by her letter and he liked her style and faith in her ability. He had “a weakness for sponsoring other San Franciscans” and the fact she had worked at a variety of jobs as he had was also in her favor.

“Show up at the studio tomorrow. I’ll see if you are as clever as you think you are.”

Stunned, she thanked him as she rose from her seat, but paused as he said, “There’s one more thing.” He thought the name Frances Marion sounded like “a whorehouse madame.”

“I’ll call you Pete.”⁴⁴