make their careers and success appear premeditated, but in reality they were seen using typewriters on occasion.15
Their similar outlooks extended to their sensitivity about their lack of extensive formal education, and both were prolific readers. Anita worked at being a natural wit and might have been a little more confident about her work than Frances and Frances was a little more comfortable in her own skin than Anita, but they were both uniquely disciplined workers in a Hollywood full of diversions and their friendship flourished.
Marie Dressler returned to California in the fall of 1917, forced by economic necessity to give up her farm and go to work. The newspapers reported she had formed her own company in partnership with “her manager and husband,” James Dalton, and signed with Goldwyn to make eight two-reel comedies. Frances was troubled by the turn in her friend’s career and didn’t laugh when Marie joked that in these new short films, based again on a character named Tillie, “plot would be replaced by pies.” As always, Marie protested that she had never been happier.16
Frances tended to be so loyal to her women friends that she didn’t trust the men they were with, and Jim Dalton was no exception. Despite the press accounts that he was Marie’s husband, Jim had yet to get the divorce he kept promising, but after Marie’s cold response to her warnings, Frances knew that whatever Jim turned out to be, nothing she said would make the slightest difference. All she could do was hope for the best.17
And Frances was reminded once again that she was in no position to make judgments about relationships when on August 21, 1917, she was served with papers informing her that Robert Pike was suing “Marion Owens Pike, also known as Frances Marion Pike,” for divorce on grounds of desertion. When she did not respond, Robert was granted an uncontested interlocutory decree in Superior Court in San Francisco in early November.18
That same week, Photoplay hit the stands with a four-page spread called “Frances Marion: Soldieress of Fortune.” This was the first major piece just on her in a fan magazine and the coverage marked a new plateau for her career. The article featured glamorous photographs of Frances, played up her San Francisco background, praised her writing and artistic abilities, and featured several self-deprecating quotes. It presented a composite picture of a beauty with humor, brains, and an awe-inspiring salary. No mention was made of any marriages.19
In the midst of this publicity, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm became the smash success she and Mary had hoped for and with it Mary said she “gained back the ground I had lost.”
As Frances was writing the script for Mary’s next picture, A Little Princess, a young man from the casting office called to say he was bringing over “a maiden fairer than Aphrodite” for her consideration. He walked in a few minutes later escorting a thin, awkward teenage girl with enormous eyes and Frances’s first reaction was that her fluttering hands and pinched face made her look like “a trapped little animal.” But when the man said, “beauty like this should not go unnoticed,” Frances threw him out of her office and admonished the young girl, now with tears in her eyes, to “pay no attention.”20
“Tell me about yourself,” Frances said in an effort to make her comfortable. Without any evidence of self-pity, the visitor talked of her early childhood in Kansas, her father’s death when she was five, and her mother’s decision to move the family to Santa Cruz, a small beach town on the northern California coast. Her mother and her two older brothers were now running a boardinghouse in the summer and she was in Los Angeles looking to work as an extra. She had appeared in the background of the circus scene in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and was hoping for a small part in whatever Mary was doing next. She had tried the casting offices of every studio in town and while she had found a few small parts, the highlight of her experience so far was actually meeting the great Griffith himself. He had told her she looked too much like Lilian Gish to be in any of his pictures and it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. Her mother had created an appellation in honor of her two maiden aunts, Eliza and Susan, and named her ZaSu Pitts.
As Frances watched and listened to the young ZaSu, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and it occurred to her that others might be touched the same way. There was a key part in A Little Princess for a young maid called a slavey and when Frances told Mary the full story, ZaSu was given the role.21
Frances’s scenario for A Little Princess was sixty pages of detailed stage directions, camera angles, and titles utilizing fantasy sequences à la Tourneur to illustrate the stories from the Arabian Nights Mary’s character Sara Crewe uses to entertain the other girls at boarding school. Premiered on November 5, 1917, A Little Princess packed the Strand theater and once again the rave reviews poured in for Mary’s “flawless” acting. Moving Picture World was not the only one to make special mention of the actress playing the young slavey; “Watch ZaSu Pitts, for she is a coming star.”22
While having over a month to work on each scenario was a new luxury for Frances, she was on a constant lookout for script material. In the evenings she often read out loud as Mary spent the obligatory hour washing and setting her hair; always sensitive to her lack of education, Mary was comfortable having Frances read to her without fear of being condescended to or judged.23
It was during one of their informal sessions that Frances read the novel The Star of the Sea by William Locke about two polar-opposite teenage orphans: the rich but crippled Stella Maris, “a figure of wondrous beauty,” and Unity Blake, “a victim of cruel fate, deformed, but equally beautiful of soul.” Stella lives in luxury, protected from the realities of the world by her titled aunt and uncle. Her reason for living becomes the handsome journalist John Risca, who visits her daily, and it is not until she is operated on and walks again that she learns John is “burdened by a drink-crazed wife” who is in jail for beating the orphan who worked for them, Unity Blake. Out of pity and guilt, John adopts Unity, who also comes to love John and she knows that when his wife is released, his happiness with Stella will end. Unity commits the “ultimate act of sacrifice” by killing the wife and then herself, leaving John a note explaining, “You was the only one as was ever kind to me. God bless you and Miss Stella Maris and make you happy.”24
It was fairly strong, serious material and Frances was surprised when Mary announced her determination to play both roles. Closeting herself to dress in her Unity costume, Mary appeared with her hair greased down, a slumped shoulder, and little makeup and it took even Frances a minute to recognize the pathetic little figure standing in the doorway.25
Adolph Zukor came to the set and “the look of dismay on the poor man’s face was something to see,” Mary said. “I had to pacify him that I died early in the picture.”
Zukor replied, “The sooner the better!”
Stella Maris brought a new pinnacle of acclaim for Mary’s dramatic talents, particularly for her role as Unity Blake. Without padding or props, Mary maintained the limp, a slumped shoulder, and a twisted mouth throughout all her scenes, and the fact that a beautiful actress willingly slicked down her hair with Vaseline to look so plain brought unprecedented praise. “Stella Maris should prove a turning point in the history of America’s favorite star,” Photoplay proclaimed. “The public will never again be satisfied with plays in which Miss Pickford is not given an opportunity to act.”26
Mickey Neilan came in for his share of plaudits and the cameraman Walter Stradling was applauded for his technical achievements in the scenes where Unity and Stella share the screen. Yet Frances’s name was mentioned rarely, even when the scenario was praised for “rising far above the novel through pure artistry of development.”27
Paramount put the full resources of its publicity department behind the film, and theater owners received sample postcards
