her arms ached, and her ears rang from the callers’ “barbed wire voices.” Marion joked that she was fired before she could master any particular situation, but she turned the experiences into short stories and though most of them went unpublished, she consoled herself that she was practicing her art.18
Marion finally found steady employment as the assistant to the acclaimed photographer Arnold Genthe. He had risen to fame and fortune through his informal poses of society matrons and their families, but he also chronicled the streets of San Francisco and was known in Chinatown as “the white man with the camera.”
Genthe could not help but notice Marion’s beauty and she became his model as well. For a Baker’s Chocolate advertisement, he posed her with another young dark-haired beauty named Hazel Tharsing, just out of Catholic school. Hazel soon would shed her convent restrictions, change her name to Carlotta Monterey, and eventually marry Eugene O’Neill.
The photographer promoted Marion as “one of the ten most beautiful women in America,” but she was more comfortable on the other side of the camera. From Genthe she learned the art of layouts and experimented with color film. They discussed the philosophy books he loaned her and he introduced her to Minnie Maddern Fiske and other grandes dames of the stage, who always scheduled photographic sessions with “Ginky” when they visited San Francisco.19
Marion and Wes finally found a small place of their own on Gratton Street near Golden Gate Park, and that meant depending only on each other when it came to the daily minutiae of life. Marion loved to cook and entertain, but planning, shopping for, and preparing dinner on a daily basis were something else again. So was dodging the landlord when the rent was due. And occasionally, Wes would “forget he was married,” as Marion politely put it, and stay out all night.20
Wes was unhappy at the Chronicle, where he sketched trials and society matrons, and wanted to devote full time to his art. Marion’s work for Genthe was lessening as the photographer began spending more time in Carmel, where Jack London, George Sterling, and other established writers and artists had small homes. With money too often becoming an issue between them, they moved back with Marion’s family.
In her letters written at the time, Marion is content but clearly in control of the relationship. Her real excitement was saved for her work and she describes her drawings with a passion that is missing when she discusses her marriage. She respected Wes’s talent more than she did her own, but knew she was much more ambitious than he. She acknowledged her “marked ability at catching a small likeness of any one I sketched or painted,” but considered it “a small skill.”21
Wes was becoming renowned for his use of colors, winning prizes and having his paintings published as magazine covers, but the recognition did not transfer into a large income. The romantic notion of two artists eking out an existence to pursue their dreams lost its luster in the reality of living from payday to payday and Wes and Marion agreed to separate. She publicly announced that two artists in one family could “not be a success” and on October 11, 1910, he filed for divorce on the grounds of extreme cruelty. When Marion was served with papers, she did not respond. From her own parents’ example, divorce was not something to be ashamed of and, since there were no children, she saw the experience as a “youthful indiscretion” and moved on.22
Marion took assignments as a commercial artist for companies like the Western Pacific Railroad. She painted landscapes of the vistas seen from the train, which were used as posters and dining car menu covers. She wrote poems to accompany the paintings and signed them Marion de Lappe:
A magic web, a sylvan dream Where sunlit pale green waters gleam And rocks rise clear to guard the stream Oh the golden Feather River In cloistered canyons soft winds sigh And lavish lights from a summer sky Blue mirrored in the shallows lie Oh the golden Feather River.23
Hoping that writing under deadline would hone her skills, Marion went to work as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner for fifteen dollars a week. However, her sympathy for victims prevented her from writing flamboyantly enough for William Randolph Hearst’s news desk and she was transferred to the theater department.
Marie Dressler was billed as “the funniest woman of the English speaking stage,” and when one of the most experienced reporters gave Marion the assignment to cover the renowned vaudevillian’s opening in Tillie’s Nightmare in March of 1911, she couldn’t believe her good fortune.24
“It’s the chance of a lifetime, kid,” he told her. “Dressler is news. Get some sketches, a signed interview and they’ll give you a spread under Ashton Stevens’s review of the play.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “Of course, you’ll get canned if you come back without them.”
Taking his word as gospel, Marion joined the throng of reporters at the star’s door at the Savoy Theater. Miss Dressler greeted them with “Hi ya, pals,” and answered their questions with self-deprecating humor. Marion stood quietly in a corner until the famous comedienne looked directly at her and said, “Hello, little girl, Where’d you come from?”
“The Examiner,” Marion replied—to instant silence.
Everyone but Marion knew that William Randolph Hearst and Marie Dressler were in the midst of a fierce feud and as the reporters looked back at Marie for a response, she ordered Marion to get out, then turned and stormed to her dressing room, sharply slamming the door.
Backstage quickly emptied, but Marion stayed frozen in her corner. Several times during the performance, Marie swept past her looking straight ahead, and when the show was over and the theater dark, the star emerged from her dressing room dressed in her street clothes, a plumed hat, and a fur coat. Marion, still in her same corner, called out, “Miss Dressler, if I don’t get this interview, I’ll lose my job.”
Marie stopped, turned, and asked, “Is that what those bastards told you?
“Only a top reporter, but he said I’d be made if I got the story and fired if I didn’t.”
Marie shook her head in disbelief and took pity on the girl twenty years younger than she and half her size.
“Let’s go into my dressing room child and I’ll give you the golldarndest interview I ever gave to any reporter.”
Marie sent her maid to the corner to bring back coffee and “a couple of oyster loaves.” Marion started sketching and Marie explained her change of heart.
“Child, I couldn’t brush aside a young girl struggling to get along. Believe me, I’ve had some tough breaks myself. Imagine starting out in the theatrical business with a face like mine when beautiful girls are all the vogue. I said to myself, ‘You’re going to make the whole world laugh at you’ and that’s exactly what I have done.” She had risen to become the star of Tillie’s Nightmare, running for a year at the Herald Square Theater, in New York and now she was traveling the country in a private train with ten cars and a dining room that never closed.
Marion drew and wrote frantically for more than an hour, listening to the laughter that punctuated Marie’s stories but sensitive to the sadness that underlay even her funniest tales. They left the theater together and Marie offered her a ride. As Marion started to get out, Marie patted her cheek. “I’ve always wished I had a daughter,” she said, and with a smile added, “I’ll see you again.”25
Marion ran up the stairs to the Examiner offices, quickly wrote the story, and turned in her drawings. Though Marie wrote Hearst a note the next day that ended their feud shortly thereafter and they remained friends the rest of their lives, at the time it was enough to keep Marion’s story
