Without Lying Down. Cari Beauchamp
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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