Film Talk March 3, 2017 Actress, Film history, Screenwriter

A century ago with Mary Pickford and Frances Marion: powerful and influential women in early Hollywood

What do these two prominent and legendary ladies of the screen – both Hollywood pioneers of the silent era – actress Mary Pickford (1892-1979) and screenwriter Frances Marion (1888-1973) have in common? As it turns out, much more than meets the eye. Not only are they early Academy Award winners – Mary Pickford as Best Actress for “Coquette” (1929), one of her final films before she retired from acting, as well as an Honorary Oscar in 1976, while Frances Marion won twice out of three nominations, for Best Writing (Achievement) for “Big House” (1930) and the following year for the Best Original Story she wrote for King Vidor’s “The Champ.” However, behind the screen, they were among the most powerful and influential personalities in the very early days of the silent era who paved the way for many other women who all conquered Hollywood one way or another.

Mary Pickford was not only one of the first leading ladies of early American cinema, becoming ‘America’s Sweetheart’ during the silent era after she started appearing in films in 1909, earning $ 40 a week at D.W. Griffith’s Biograph. A decade later a superstar, she also became one of the founders of United Artists, along with husband Douglas Fairbanks, Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, in order to have full control and autonomy over their own creative work. By then, for quite a few years already, the foursome were considered to be the most successful creative brains in Hollywood. As a highly successful actress and businesswoman, the well-respected Pickford became one of the most powerful women in the film community.

But she wasn’t the only one who was able to pull a few strings. There were several other talented women behind the screen, screenwriters as well as directors, who played an equally vital and innovative part in the silent era. The first director to tell a story on the screen was a woman. The highest paid director in the days of silent films was a woman. The first film editor to receive solo screen credit was a woman. The pioneer of social consciousness in film was a woman. Before 1920, more women worked in creative and influential positions than at any other time in motion picture history. But also later on, they still remained dynamic and creative forces as some of the best, but sadly, very often overlooked, geniuses in the film industry.

Publicity still of director Dorothy Arzner on the set of Paramount’s “Merrily We Go to Hell” (1932) starring Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March

As film historian Cari Beauchamp points out in “Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood” (1997), Pickford called screenwriter Frances Marion “the pillar of my career.” As the screenwriter of several hugely successful Pickford features, including “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1917), “The Little Princess” (1917), and “Pollyanna” (1920, one of her first United Artists films which at the time grossed over a million dollars), she also wrote screenplays for Colleen Moore, Norma Talmadge, Vilma Banky and numerous other box-office stars of the 1920s. Mary Pickford and Frances Marion were also best friends who in Europe even honeymooned together with their new husbands.

Hollywood opened its doors widely to women, not only actresses or writers, but also directors including Lois Weber (1879-1939) and Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979), who was praised by her UCLA prize pupil Francis Ford Coppola at a 1975 DGA tribute when he said, “Everywhere you went was this negative thing, but she was the first one who said something encouraging.” Female editors included Margaret Booth (1898-2002, Academy Award-winning editor) and Blanche Sewell (1898-1949), and in their footsteps, literally hundreds of other women flocked to Hollywood, where they could flourish as actresses, writers, editors, directors, and producers.

Actress Jean Harlow and screenwriter Anita Loos, author of the novel ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ who also wrote the screenplay of “Red-Headed Woman” (1932) for Jean Harlow

Some of the female screenwriters became legends in Hollywood – highly paid and some of them turning out one film a week. And yet, almost eighty years later now, their names are very often only mentioned in insignificant footnotes in history books, totally unnoticed, even though some sources indicate that during the 1910s, 20s and 30s, one quarter of all Hollywood screenwriters were women who wrote over 40% of the films copyrighted during the silent era (roughly from 1911 to 1929).

What would the movies have been without some of Hollywood’s foremost early female screenwriters? Besides Frances Marion, those who came up with the plot, stories, characters, and dialogue of some of the most enduring and highest grossing silent films, include (all listed according to their year of birth, sometimes co-written, or directed by themselves)

Beatrice DeMille (1853-1923, “Betty to the Rescue,” 1917; “The Jaguar’s Claws,” 1917; “The Devil-Stone,” 1917)
Elinor Glyn (1864-1943, “Three Weeks,” 1924; “It,” 1927; “Three Weekends,” 1928)
Julie Crawford Ivers (1867-1930, “The Rug Maker’s Daughter,” 1915; “The Intrigue,” 1916; “In a Moment of Temptation,” 1927)
E. Magnus Ingleton (1873-1936, “The Moonstone,” 1915; “Love’s Prisoner,” 1919; “The Kissbarrier,” 1925)
Beulah Marie Dix (1876-1970, “The Girl at Home,” 1917; “Secret Service,” 1919; “Midnight Mystery,” 1930)
Josephine Lovett (1877-1958, “Tess of Storm Country,” 1923; “The Fighting Blade,” 1923; “Annie Laurie,” 1927)
Alla Nazimova (1879-1945, “Madame Peacock,” 1920; “Billions,” 1920 [both as Nazimova]; “A Doll’s House,” 1922 [as Peter M. Winter])
Ida May Park (1879-1954, “Hell Morgan’s Girl,” 1917; “The Vanity Pool,” 1918; “The Hidden Way,” 1926)
Gertrude Thanhouser (1880-1951, “The Winter’s Tale,” 1910; “From the River’s Depths,” 1915; “The Price of Her Silence,” 1915)
Mary MacLane (1881-1929, “Men Who Have Made Love to Me,” 1918)
Maude Fulton (1881-1950, “Salvation Jane,” 1927; “The Maltese Falcon,” 1931; “Broken Dreams,” 1933)
Sada Cowan (1882-1943, “Seeds of Vengeance,” 1920; “East of Suez,” 1925; “Woman in the Dark,” 1934)
Leah Baird (1883-1971, “A Woman,” 1912; “When Husbands Deceive,” 1922; “The Return of Boston Blackie,” 1927)
Jane Murfin (1884-1955, “The Silent Call,” 1921; “Street Girl,” 1921; “Ann Vickers,” 1933)
Gene Gaunthier (1885-1966, “Ben-Hur,” 1907, “The Scarlett Letter,” 1908; “Lady Peggy’s Escape,” 1913)
Lorna Moon (1886-1930, “Upstage,” 1926; “Women Love Diamonds,” 1927; “Min and Bill,” 1930)
Jeanie Macpherson (1886-1946, “Joan the Woman,” 1916; “The Ten Commandments,” 1923)
Lillian Chester (1887-1961, “The Message of the Mouse,” 1917; “Trumpet Island,” 1920; “The Flaming Hour,” 1922)
Ruth Ann Baldwin (1889-19??, “A Prince of Bavaria,” 1914; “It Makes a Difference,” 1917; “The Broken Commandments,” 1919)
Clara Beranger (1886-1956, “Anna Karenina,” 1915; “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” 1920; “His Double Life,” 1933)
Louise Long, 1886-1966, “Rough House Rosie,” 1927; “Sawdust Paradise,” 1928; “The Virtuous Sin,” 1930)
Ouida Bergère (1886-1974, “The Romantic Journey,” 1916; “The Hillcrest Mystery,” 1918; “The Eternal City,” 1923)
June Mathis (1887-1927, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” 1921; “Greed,” 1924; “Ben-Hur,” 1925)
Eve Unsell (1888-1937, “In Pursuit of Polly,” 1918; “Captain January,” 1924; “Conquest,” 1928)
Sonya Levien (1888-1960, “The Heart Thief,” 1927; “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” 1939; “The Valley of Decision,” 1945)
Anita Loos (1888-1981, “The Social Secretary,” 1916; “Polly of the Follies,” 1922; “Red-Headed Woman,” 1932; “Riffraff,” 1936; “The Women,” 1939)
Marguerite Bertsch (1889-1967, “The Fruits of Vengeance,” 1910; The Vital Question,” 1916; “Shadow of the Past,” 1919)
Lucille McVey (1890-1925, “Lest We Forget,” 1917; “Pay Day,” 1918; “The Charming Mrs. Chase,” 1920)
Bess Meredyth (1890-1969, “Don Juan,” 1926; “A Woman of Affairs,” 1928; “The Mark of Zorro,” 1940)
Anzia Yezierska (1890-1970, “Hungry Hearts,” 1922; “Salome of the Tenements,” 1925)
Olga Printzlau (1891-1962, “Maytime,” 1923; “The Age of Innocence,” 1924; “Fashion Madness,” 1928)
Nell Shipman (1892-1970, “The Shepherd of the Southern Cross,” 1914; “My Fighting Gentleman,” 1917; “Trail of the North Wind,” 1924)
Grace Cunard (1893-1967, “A Soldier’s Honor,” 1912; “The Purple Mask,” 1916; “The Scappin’ Ranger,” 1928)
Gale Henry (1893-1972, “Lady Baffles and the Detective Duck in the Great Egg Robbery,” 1915; “Chills and Chickens,” 1915; “The Masked Marvels,” 1917)
Hope Loring (1894-1959, “Helen’s Babies,” 1924; “It,” 1927; “Wings,” 1927)
Ruth Cummings (1894-1984, “Annie Laurie,” 1927; “Our Dancing Daughters,” 1928; “A Woman of Affairs,” 1928)
Alice D. G. Miller (1894-1985, “Ladies of the Night,” 1925; “Two Lovers,” 1928; “Rose-Marie,” 1936)
Adela Rogers St. Johns (1894-1988, “Lady of the Night,” 1925: “The Arizona Wildcat,” 1927; “What Price Hollywood?” 1932)
Agnes Christine Johnston (1896-1978, “Forbidden Paradise,” 1924; “Show People,” 1928; “Three Wise Girls,” 1932)
Sarah Y. Mason (1896-1980, “One Hour of Love,” 1927; “Stella Dallas,” 1937; “Golden Boy,” 1939; “Little Women,” 1949)
Lenore J. Coffee (1896-1984, “The Forbidden Woman,” 1920; “Chicago,” 1927; “Evelyn Prentice,” 1934)
Dorothy Yost (1899-1967; “Jackie,” 1921; “Uneasy Payments,” 1927; “A Dog of Flanders,” 1935)
Dorothy Farnum (1900-1974, “The Temptress,” 1926; “Torrent,” 1926; “A Free Soul,” 1931)
Frederica Sagor Maas (1900-2011, “Flesh and the Devil,” 1926; “Rolled Stockings,” 1927)

Among the women who pioneered and excelled in screenwriting during the post-silent era, are

Gladys Unger (1888-1937, “Dynamite,” 1929; “Great Expectations,” 1934; “Sylvia Scarlett,” 1935)
Vicki Baum (1888-1960, “Grand Hotel,” 1932; “The Night Is Young,” 1935; “Girl Trouble,” 1942)
Salka Viertel (1889-1978, “Queen Christina,” 1933; “The Painted Veil,” 1934: “Anna Karenina,” 1935)
Claudine West (1890-1983, “Smilin’ Through,” 1932; “The Good Earth,” 1937; “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” 1939; “Mrs. Miniver,” 1942)
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967, “Suzy,” 1936; “A Star Is Born,” 1937; “The Little Foxes,” 1941; “Saboteur,” 1942)
Dorothy Davenport (1895-1977, “Honeymoon Limited, 1935; “Redhead,” 1941; “Impact,” 1949 [as screenwriter always credited as Dorothy Reid, widow of actor Wallace Reid])
Ruth Gordon (1896-1985, “A Double Life,” 1947; “Adam’s Rib,” 1949; “Pat and Mike,” 1952)
Virginia Van Upp (1902-1970, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” 1934; “Come Live With Me,” 1941; “Cover Girl,” 1944)
Muriel Box (1905-1991, “The Happy Family,” 1952; “The Passionate Stranger,” 1957; “The Truth About Women,” 1957)
Catherine Turney (1906-1998, “The Bride Wore Red,” 1937; “A Stolen Life,” 1946; “No Man of Her Own,” 1950)
Dorothy Kingsley (1909-1997, “Bathing Beauty,’ 1944; “A Date With Judy,” 1948; “Kiss Me Kate,” 1948)
Virginia Kellogg (1915-1981, “The Road to Reno,” 1931; “T-Men,” 1947; “Caged,” 1950)
Joan Harrison (1907-1994, “Rebecca,” 1940; “Foreign Correspondent,” 1940; “Suspicion,” 1941; “Saboteur,” 1942)
Leigh Brackett (1915-1978, “Rio Bravo,” 1959; “Hatari!” 1962; “The Long Goodbye,” 1973; “The Empire Strikes Back,” 1980)
Betty Comden (1915-2006, “Good News,” 1947; “On the Town,” 1949; “Singin’ in the Rain,” 1952; “The Band Wagon,” 1953)

Later on, prominent screenwriters included

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013, “The Bostonians,” 1984; “A Room With a View,” 1985; “Howards End,” 1992)
Elaine May (b. 1932, “A New Leaf,” 1971, “Heaven Can Wait,” 1978; “Tootsie,” 1982; “Primary Colors,” 1998)
Carole Eastman (1934-2004, “Five Easy Pieces,” 1967; “The Fortune,” 1975 [both as Adrien Joyce]; “Man Trouble,” 1992)
Nora Ephron (1941-2012, “Silkwood,” 1983; “When Harry Met Sally…,” 1989; “You’ve Got Mail,” 1998; “Julie & Julia,” 2009)
Melissa Mathison (1950-2015, “The Black Stallion,” 1979; “E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial,” 1982; “Kundun,” 1997: “The BFG,” 2016)
Carrie Fisher (1956-2016, “Postcards From the Edge,” 1990; “These Old Broads,” 2001)

A few of the current female screenwriters who write / wrote character-driven dramas to Hollywood blockbusters, are

Lina Wertmüller (b. 1928, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” 1972; “Seven Beauties,” 1975; “Which Way Is Up?” 1977)
Eleanor Bergstein (b. 1938, “It’s My Turn,” 1980; “Dirty Dancing,” 1987; “Let It Be Me,” 1995)
Suzanne De Passe (b. 1946, “Lady Sings the Blues,” 1972)
Nancy Meyers (b. 1949, “I Love Trouble,” 1994; “Something’s Gotta Give,” 2003; “The Holiday,” 2006; “The Intern,” 2015)
Diana Ossana (b. 1949, “Brokeback Mountain,” 2005)
Linda Woolverton (b. 1952, “Beauty and the Beast,” 1991; “The Lion King,” 1995; “Alice in Wonderland,” 2010)
Jane Campion (b. 1954, “The Piano,” 1993; “In the Cut,” 2003; “Bright Star,” 2009)
Leslie Dixon (“Mrs. Doubtfire,” 1993; “The Thomas Crown Affair,” 1999; “Hairspray,” 2007; “The Heartbreak Kid,” 2007)
Callie Khouri (b. 1957, “Thelma & Louise,” 1991; “Something to Talk About,” 1995; “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” 2002)
Emma Thompson (b. 1959, “Sense and Sensibility,” 1995; “Nanny McPhee,” 2005; “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” 2016)
Fran Walsh (b. 1959, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” 2001; “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” 2002; “King Kong,” 2005; “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” 2012)
Melissa Rosenberg (b. 1962, “Twilight,” 2008; “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” 2009; “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” 2010; “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1,” 2011; “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2,” 2012)
Susannah Grant (b. 1963, “Pocahontas,” 1995; “Erin Brokovich,” 2000; “In Her Shoes,” 2005)
Amanda Silver (“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” 1992; “Eye for an Eye,” 1996; “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” 2011; “Jurassic World,” 2015)
Philippa Boyens (“The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” 2001; “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” 2002; “King Kong,” 2005; “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” 2012)
Andrea Berloff (“World Trade Center,” 2006; “Blood Father,” 2016; “Sleepless,” 2017)
Katie Dippold (“The Heat,” 2013; “Ghostbusters,” 2016; “Snatched,” 2017)
Aline Brosh McKenna (b. 1967, “The Devil Wears Prada,” 2006; “We Bought a Zoo,” 2011; “Annie,” 2014)
Abi Morgan (b. 1968, “Shame,” 2011; “The Iron Lady,” 2011; “Suffragette,” 2015)
Gina Prince-Bythewood (b. 1969, “The Secret Life of the Bees,” 2008; “Beyond the Lights,” 2014)
Kirsten Smith (b. 1970, “10 Things I Hate About You,” 1999; “She’s the Man,” 2006; “The Ugly Truth,” 2009)
Shonda Rhimes (b. 1970, “Crossroads,” 2002; “The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement,” 2004)
Jane Goldman (b. 1970, “Stardust,” 2007; “The Debt,” 2010; “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” 2014)
Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out,” 2015; “The Good Dinosaur,” 2015; “Gigantic,” 2018)
Gillian Flynn (b. 1971, “Gone Girl,” 2014; “Widows,” 2018)
Sofia Coppola (b. 1971, “The Virgin Suicides,” 1999; “Lost in Translation,” 2003; “The Bling Ring,” 2013)
Kelly Marcel (b. 1974, “Saving Mr. Banks,” 2013; “Fifty Shades of Grey,” 2015; “Cruella,” 2018)
Diablo Cody (b. 1978, “Juno,” 2007; “Paradise,” 2013; “Ricki and the Flash,” 2015)
Greta Gerwig (b. 1983, “Northern Comfort,” 2010; “Mistress America,” 2015; “Lady Bird,” 2017)

With International Women’s Day on March 8, this is merely a comment, a thought out of the blue, to remind that film history would never have been as rich and as rewarding as it is now if it hadn’t been for the humongous contribution from so many brilliant women behind the camera, in the editing room, behind their typewriters (no time to relax), who all left behind a glittering record of credits about a century ago – give or take a decade or two.

That’s the good news. But there’s some pretty bad and disturbing news to deliver as well. Martha M. Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at the San Diego State University, California, indicated that in 2016, ‘women comprised 17% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films.’ More specifically, ‘women accounted for 7% of directors, down 2 percentage points from 9% in 2015 and 1998. Last year, 92% of films had no female directors; in other roles, women comprised 13% of writers, 17% of executive producers, 24% of producers, 17% of editors, and 5% of cinematographers’ (for the full report of Martha M. Lauzen’s “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind the Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 100, 250, and 500 Films of 2016,” click here).

Even though we’re terribly fortunate to have quite a bit of very accomplished and highly acclaimed female screenwriters at work, there are still a lot of chapters to be written on the continuing saga of Frances Marion, Anita Loos, their contemporaries and, ultimately, those who follow in their footsteps – now and in the decades to come. Ironically, while Hollywood was able to break the glass ceiling a century ago, today’s statistics about the employment of women in key positions behind the camera – and as screenwriters as we’ve been pointing out here specifically – couldn’t be worse.

Related