The First King of Hollywood

by Tracey Goessel

  *8. The authors may have been referencing the scene at the end when Fairbanks mounts his horse with Lupe Vélez in his arms. If this was the case, the filmmakers neatly resolved the problem by having him step up on a tree root and from there directly onto the horse’s back.

  *9. Most feel that Mary did not physically stray during the production of My Best Girl. “If there was an affair going on between Buddy and Mary, I don’t think anybody in the studio, or I should say, on the picture, was really conscious of it,” Humberstone said. “I think it possibly developed there, but it didn’t mature [until] after the picture was over with.”

  *10. † Many sources mention their nicknames for each other as “Duber” and “Hipper.” Review of their correspondence suggests that he called her “Frin” more than “Hipper.”

  *11. It is harder to get modern viewers, with their postmodern, postironic eye, to see the earlier films through the lenses of their original audiences. The same is true of the best of the early silent Pickfords: before you can be postironic, you need to be ironic; before you can be ironic, you have to see things as purely and with as whole a heart as a child seeing a film such as The Wizard of Oz for the first time. That is a mental state that is hard to return to, but it was closer to how the earliest audiences greeted the pure heroics and twinkling charm of Fairbanks’s characters.

  *12. This was followed by two more hybrid releases of Vitaphone shorts plus silent feature with score: The Better ’Ole with Sydney Chaplin (Charlie’s brother) and When a Man Loves, again with John Barrymore.

  *13. He was forward thinking enough to see that sound on film would come, but he wasn’t entirely convinced that the sound would necessarily be speech: “Dialog may and may not be the ultimate result of experiments with sound in pictures,” he said in mid-1927. “The proper synchronization of beautiful music may mark the end of all our present-day experiments with talking pictures.”

  *14. † The court let him off with a ten-dollar fine.

  *15. Contemporary newspaper accounts suggest that the guests did not in fact include the Prince of Wales, only his younger brother, the future King George.

  *16. The broadcast was too soon after Charlotte’s death; Pickford did not participate.

  *17. The audio has been returned to the end reel by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in its most recent restoration of the film.

  *18. † Director Allan Dwan confirms this story, but as was his wont, he embellished. “And gosh, we stopped it quick,” he said, referring to the playback machine, “and got a good deep voiced fella; hired him to do it.” There is no evidence to confirm that this was the case. The voice, when compared with later talkies, is clearly that of Fairbanks.

  *19. * While there were tests of sound recordings at the studio before The Iron Mask, Fairbanks’s company was the first to produce a talking sequence on the lot.

  15

  . . . and Taxes

  * * *

  TO ADD TO ALL of life’s other woes, in the autumn of 1928 Doug and Mary found themselves in a tussle with the IRS. The dispute was multilayered and of long standing, and it involved them both, not only as a married couple but also as independent producers.

  Fairbanks had been at odds with the Treasury Department almost since the inception of income tax. Taxation on personal income was a novelty to his generation when Congress passed legislation in 1913, and his early submissions of deductions were almost quaint in their sparse simplicity. He and the federal government seemed to be figuring the thing out as they went along, and the early quarrels were correspondingly simple. No, he could not subtract the entire cost of his automobile; he could deduct only those costs that were associated with his work. No, donations to a balloon aviation school during war were not deductible, but those to the Red Cross were. Handwritten schedules of his deductions are as revelatory to character as they are to the early days of taxes. His official charitable giving was scattershot and impulsive: the Salvation Army, a nearby orphanage, the American Legion, the National Tuberculosis Association; whatever need happened to be directly under his nose would receive money. But he provided a wealth of unofficial charity as well, constantly lending money to, and writing off bad loans from, an odd assortment of cowhands, ex-boxers, and friends. He gave funds to one Mrs. Austin to “aid in getting artificial limb”; those injured during filming might find themselves one hundred dollars richer; “Slim” Cole needed thirty dollars, as did one Pat Rooney, who required the same sum to get out of jail. Records document that he bailed out a lot of cowhands—literally.

  The deductions also offer a fascinating glimpse into some creative schemes that never saw the light of day. The sum of $6.36 was invested in “experimental work on bouncing doll”; experiments in stereo photography were more expensive—$2,618.57 was written off as a loss against these endeavors.

  But as the tax system became more complex, so did his quarrels. One related to the fact that his wife was as wealthy as he. For income over $1 million, the tax rate was 55.06 percent—a strong incentive to keep incomes separate, if ever there was one. In April 1922, clearly on the advice of accountants and legal counsel, Doug and Mary drew up agreements specifying that their finances were to be separate during their marriage. Each would file separately, permitting them to take advantage of the portions of their incomes that were accordingly taxed at a lower rate. “It is the desire and intention of the parties hereto that each shall acquire, own, possess, dispose of and enjoy their respective property and in all respects as if no marriage had ever been entered into between them,” stated the agreement. Each relinquished any claim on the other’s property (except inasmuch as such property might later be bequeathed to the other after death).

  Uncle Sam begged to differ. California State law claimed that the husband had control of all community property in a marriage. If Doug could control Mary’s money, the IRS reasoned, then he had to pay taxes on it.

  It was not as if he were a tax scofflaw. His financial advisers ensured that he took only conservative deductions and paid his fair share. In fact, he likely paid far more than his fair share. In 1924, for example, he paid over $225,000 in state and federal taxes; in comparison, John D. Rockefeller paid $124,266.47 and J. Pierpont Morgan coughed up a measly $98,643.67.

  Even of greater resonance for them, and for the industry at large, was a far more complex dispute that related to how independent producers could assign expenses. Large studios, engaging in the practice of block booking, were in a position to assign future revenue to a film on an accrual basis. They knew that they would sell a certain program of films and could write off the costs over time against the future revenues. Pickford and Fairbanks made the following argument: an independent producer would not be in this position, but instead would sell one film at a time, needing to take the profits from the currently playing production and invest them in the next film. From a financial standpoint, these producers needed to be reporting their income and expenses on a cash, not an accrual, basis. They had no way of knowing what would come in for a film in year two or three. Further, they needed to report their income and losses on their productions as a unit. Two films that each cost $200,000 might have different outcomes; one might return only $50,000, while the other might return $350,000. If the returns were summed, the producer would have been at a dead break-even point and would owe no taxes; money in ($400,000) equaled money out ($400,000). But if reported on an accrual basis, the producer would be taxed for the $150,000 profit on the second film, although he or she had not netted a penny. It was the government’s stubborn inability to yield on this point that had bankrupted many an independent producer, including Charles Ray, a very successful star in the late 1910s, the failure of whose film, The Courtship of Miles Standish, broke him personally.

  Finally, Fairbanks had one separate issue with the Feds, related to his production company (the Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corporation), formed in 1917 as a firewall against a possible lawsuit from then father-in-law Daniel Sully. The organization was simply
a pass-through entity, receiving payments and then passing them on to its individual members (Loos, Emerson, Fleming, Doug and John Fairbanks) as per the original profit-sharing plan. Those individuals then paid taxes on the money they received.

  The government wanted the production company to pay the taxes. This was all well and good, Fairbanks (and his attorneys) argued; but then all the members were due refunds for all the taxes they had paid over the years. In Doug’s instance, $551,013 was due to be refunded in payments and interest just for 1918 and 1919 alone.

  The government, then as now, was maddeningly inconsistent, both in the interpretation of its own rules and in the administration of them. Fairbanks would win this last quarrel until a few years later, when the government would again reverse itself and ask for all the money back—with interest, of course. He would be engaged until his death (and beyond) in many of these disputes. The only consolation that he and Mary had as they sat through weary tax hearings in late October 1928 was that they were treated better than the average taxpayer. At least that nice Mr. Coolidge invited them to the White House for lunch after the fact.

  It was thin consolation. They entered 1929 in an uneasy state, their marriage in broken shards around them and uncertain how—or even whether—to fix it. Work was Mary’s cure-all. Travel was Doug’s. They started with travel. As with everything else in the last year of their golden decade, it turned out to be a very rocky ride.

  He decided that they should see the country from the air. In March he chartered a private, fourteen-seat trimotored Ford monoplane for $175 per hour and assembled a collection of family and friends that included Lillian Gish, Robert and his wife, some spare royalty, and thirteen-year-old Gwynne. They would fly to Phoenix, then El Paso, he declared. Cruise around the Mexican border and watch the promised dustups between Mexican revolutionaries and the federales. Then, perhaps, they would pop over to Florida.

  Their plans changed upon landing at their first stop, Agua Caliente, Arizona. Mary, Gwynne, Lillian, and all the other ladies of the trip emerged from the plane green and airsick. Perhaps, he acknowledged, it was a tad too bumpy for a pleasure trip. They gave up after Phoenix, settling instead for a mule ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

  Upon returning to Hollywood, he was at sixes and sevens. By some measures, he had little to worry about. The Iron Mask had opened at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City in early March and had smashed all box office records at that venue, running eight shows a day and crowding the sidewalks early and late. Of note was that these records were broken even though the tickets were at a reduced price—for the first time in his career, Fairbanks did not open a film at the two-dollar mark. “Doug has always managed to feed it to the waiting public at two bucks a smack before he let them get a peek for six bits or less,” wrote one New York columnist (who evidently had Runyonesque aspirations). “Just to show Doug that Broadway appreciates this they are kicking in with enough of the six bits to smack the Rivoli house record in a Dobbs topper. Of course, Doug and his boys may have had their own idea in giving The Iron Mask direct to the picture house public without the benefit of a legit run in advance. If so they were wise, ’cause there ain’t no two bucks worth on tap in this one. But in the picture houses it should wow ’em and probably will.”

  A Fairbanks swashbuckler without a road show release was unprecedented. But in a market engulfed by talkies, this was a wise strategy, and it eventually paid off. The Iron Mask had a negative cost of $1,495,603.02, with additional UA charges of $89,230.02. It did not turn a profit until after August 1930 but was eventually a moneymaker.

  Years later, Allan Dwan was philosophic about the film:

  It was a better picture [than Robin Hood], but from the audience acceptance standpoint, it didn’t have the kick that that one had. It just couldn’t live up to it. It was a different tempo anyway, here was Robin Hood, kind of a dancing around guy, all the time, doing the most amazing things; whereas the other was kind of a more stolid story. . . . This [Robin Hood] had that myth; it had that magic that a picture needs. And you never know when you’ve got that.

  The verdict on Fairbanks’s voice was mixed. Many thought it was fine: “He spoke distinctly and with excellent dramatic effect,” claimed one critic. Another wrote, “We have not heard many Shakespearian actors do better with heroic declamation.”

  But the contrarians were strong in their reproof. One wrote that his voice “registered like warm dish water dripping on a tin garage.” Another headline must have caused no little despair: DOUG MUST MAKE ACTIONS SPEAK FOR HIS VOICE’S A FLOP.

  Further, The Iron Mask was competing not only with talking pictures but also with films populated by fresh-faced youngsters—among them, his son.

  Junior had remained in Los Angeles after the failure of his first movie, working his way doggedly up the food chain of the studio system, taking a progressively improving series of supporting roles in lesser films. He was no longer pudgy and awkward but long and lean and strikingly handsome. He started getting roles—serious roles—in important projects. In the fall of 1927, the seventeen-year-old starred in a local stage production of Young Woodley. Fairbanks, Pickford, and Chaplin were among the supportive and enthusiastic first-nighters. To commemorate the event, Doug gave his son a signed first edition of Henry Irving’s The Art of Acting. He quoted Shakespeare in the inscription: “Let your own discretion be your tutor—(Hamlet).”

  The gift was cherished by the teenager, but in the short term another memento was of more interest: a note from a young actress who was also at the premiere. Joan Crawford was impressed with his performance and wanted to meet. He obliged her, and a romance ensued.

  In the spring of 1929, they announced their engagement. She was twenty-three to his nineteen, although she subtracted three years from her age (and he added one to his) when they applied for their marriage license. Their June elopement was no secret to his mother, who attended the impromptu Manhattan ceremony. But to Doug and Mary, the news came as a surprise. A celluloid hero might conceivably have a teenage son; but to have a son who was married—and very publicly married at that—created the unflattering suggestion that he was getting long in the tooth. Not longer was it DougandMary the fan magazines were cooing over; DougandJoan relegated them to the awkward status of in-laws.

  It may have been discretion; it may have been an unexpected serenity. Somehow Fairbanks never demonstrated any public angst on the topic. His son recalled receiving a lengthy telegram when news of the marriage leaked: “It was absolutely charming and full of hearty blessings. It was in fact so very warm that Billie [Crawford] cried with relief on the spot.” Privately, things may have been quite different. “He could not have enjoyed Billie’s frequent talk about having children,” his son wrote. Nor, for that matter, could have Mary. There was little that united Doug and Mary at this stage, but both agreed that neither was ready to be viewed as a grandparent.

  Another area of spousal agreement—they would finally make a film together. There had been talk of this as early as 1923, when reports circulated that Ernst Lubitsch would direct them in Romeo and Juliet. But Norma Talmadge was already planning a version, and the gooey-eyed Romeo did not seem a good fit for the ever-cheerful Fairbanks. When in 1924 Mary was asked about a joint project, she replied, “It would be very unwise for me to act with him, as Douglas paints with a broad brush and I with a small one. Also, we have an entirely different tempo or medium of expression. It is as if he were going at sixty miles an hour and I at thirty. We stand for different things on the screen. His pictures are for men and mine are for women.”

  Still, the question popped up annually, peppered by scattered pronoucements: They were considering a play by Karl Vollmöller, coauthor of The Miracle, with Max Reinhardt directing. No, they would make El Cid, with Mary’s brother Jack at the helm. They even contemplated Seventh Heaven, before deciding it was too dark.

  Finally, in the spring of 1929, they settled on The Taming of the Shrew. Many arguments favored the choice.
The play had strong parts for each. Fairbanks’s love of Shakespeare survived beyond his childhood, when, in the words of one scribe, he “could do King Lear or Lady Macbeth without change of costume.” As early as 1914 he had voiced a desire for his own repertoire company that would perform the works of Shakespeare. But he maintained that he was at a disadvantage. “Mary has made good in the all-talkies and I don’t know the first thing about them,” he claimed. Nonetheless, the thought of performing the Bard was daunting to Mary. Douglas had extensive Shakespearean experience, she pointed out. She had had none.

  It was uncharacteristic. Each was jockeying, trying to explain why the other had an advantage. As they met the press on the topic, there was a definite competitive edge to their statements. They were already in a quarrelling frame of mind. “It will be the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” she declared.

  “What do you mean ‘I’?” came her husband’s retort. “It will be the greatest thing ‘we’ have done.”

  The topic then advanced to whether this would be their last film. Would they retire? “Doug pretends he would like to retire,” Pickford said.

  He interrupted. “Yeah, I’d like to be a bum. I’d like to loaf around and not have anything to do.”

  Mary was quite contrary. “If you have heard that as often as I have, you’d have a good laugh. Douglas always wants to go some place for a vacation and be a bum—he thinks. Every time we get away from Hollywood he yells and yells and yells until we get back. You can say for me that I’m not nearly ready to retire and you can say for Douglas that he isn’t either.” In another interview she groused, “Right now my biggest worry is that just when we are about ready to start our picture Douglas will decide he wants to go to Europe and drag me over there with him.”