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
Chapter 4
Frances took the 7:30 ferry across the Hudson River to Fort Lee the next morning and arrived at
