Christie wrote his movies at night and filmed them during the day using a stopwatch. When the time was up, they were done and the reels sent back east for processing. No one on the set had a chance to look at them before they were printed and distributed. Christie shared his stage sets and actors with the other directors, Tom Rickotta and Milton Fahrney. Everyone took his turn at filming on different days throughout the week.
By 1912, The Nestor Motion Picture Company was doing business with Universal Films. Three years later, the two companies merged with Christie taking charge of the comedy department. Being an independent spirit, however, Christie wanted to strike out on his own. In 1915, he returned to the Sunset and Gower location asking big brother Charles to join him there.
The Christie Brothers hailed from Canada. Their father, Scotland-born George Wiseman Christie, was a police constable in London, Ontario. He had a daughter, Anne, from his first wife, Mary Reynolds, who died at an early age. George took a second wife, Mary Ann Jarvis, and the couple had a son, Charles, born on April 13, 1880. Younger brother Alfred joined the family in late 1881. The following year, the Christies were plunged into despair when George unexpectedly died of consumption, an old term for pulmonary tuberculosis. Mary was forced to fend for herself and her children, including stepdaughter Anne, so she took in boarders. Many of her guests worked in the theater, which made an impression on young Al.
He spent much of his time at The London Ontario Opera House watching the performers—particularly the comedians who intrigued him. He even started suggesting ways the comics could get more laughs from the audience. Those who were receptive to his ideas tipped him. Others told him to get lost. Eventually, he took on the position of opera house stage manager before moving to New York where he also worked in the theater until David Horsley hired him to direct films.
The elder and more serious-minded Christie brother, Charles, remained in Canada and became a railroad man. He worked for the Grand Trunk Railroad in the passenger department and eventually moved on to advertising in their Ontario Division. He also married Edna Durand, the daughter of Canadian architect George F. Durand and his wife Sarah Parker, on October 15, 1902. The next year, Christie left the Grand Trunk to become a salesman before moving on to run a large department store in Ontario where he stayed until Al beckoned him to Hollywood.
In 1915, Christie stopped minding the store when he joined younger brother Al at Sunset and Gower. Together, they established The Christie Film Company, which specialized in comedies. Fun-loving Al oversaw production while Charles, with his knack for business, took care of the books. Based on a good word from Horsley, Universal agreed to distribute their pictures. The two brothers stayed away from slapstick and produced situational comedies, such as Seminary Scandal (1916) starring comedienne Billie Rhodes. This short with the titillating title told the story of a young boy who dressed as a girl in order to be with his lady love when she went away to boarding school where boys weren’t allowed. Explained Al Christie:
We were more concerned with storylines than sheer slapstick, and I don’t think we would have been nearly so successful if we had tried to copy Sennett. He was the master of slapstick. He dressed his people up in odd-looking clothing that no normal person would be seen dead in outside the studio. We dressed ours in street clothes and gave them funny situations that were, in our eyes, much more acceptable to the more sophisticated audiences.…
The brothers were spot on. Moviegoers delighted in their storylines and proved it at the box office with high ticket sales. Now independent producers, The Christie Film Company turned the men into big-time filmmakers and their mother helped. She joined her sons in California and to cut overhead, she often loaned them her furniture. For example, if a scene required a table and chairs, she sent her dining room set to the studio—as long as her boys promised they’d have it back to her in time for dinner.
While business was on the upswing, Charles suffered a personal setback. His wife, Edna, developed an ulcer requiring surgery. As a result of the operation, she died on July 16, 1918. The childless couple had been married almost sixteen years. Charles never took another spouse.
As for the movies, The Christie Film Company was so successful that the brothers increased their production capacity and purchased new equipment—the latest technology had to offer. They even established a fan mail department where secretaries answered letters written to their popular players by enthusiastic moviegoers. Each actor had his or her own unique stationery and was required to personally sign every letter written on their behalf. An autographed picture usually accompanied each response. It may have been a lot of bother, but the innovative Christie Brothers believed it helped business.
This same department also created a movie magazine called Film Follies so that fans could keep up with their favorite players along with the film company’s latest news. First published in 1919, the magazine proved very popular and had a successful run for more than a decade. While Al kept everyone laughing, Charles went to the bank and the Christie Brothers morphed into movie moguls.
While the Christies established themselves at Sunset and Gower, other production companies followed suit. Former Biograph director Mack Sennett set up The Keystone Pictures Studio near Los Angeles. Carl Laemmle, head of The Universal Film Manufacturing Company of New York, opened a studio right across the street from The Nestor Motion Picture Company. New York theatrical producer and booking agent Jesse L. Lasky organized the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, which also settled in Hollywood at Selma and Vine.
Born in San Francisco on September 13, 1880 to Isaac Lasky, a shoe-store proprietor and his wife, Sarah Platt, Jesse Louis Lasky was one of the few early filmmakers native to California. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany. In the mid-1800s, they journeyed across the country in a covered wagon until they reached Sacramento.
As a youngster, Lasky’s family moved from San Francisco to San Jose where he loved to fly fish with his father. He also spent time playing the cornet on the family’s front porch. It was his hope that band leader John Philip Sousa would march down his street, hear the music and be so impressed that he would have no choice but to make room for Lasky in his famous ensemble. Sousa never got to Lasky’s house. Instead, Isaac fell ill and lost his business. The family moved back to San Francisco where Lasky’s father passed away. With part of the insurance settlement, the family invested $500 in a machine that was supposed to make maple syrup. The venture was a scam and the two men who sold them the contraption took the money and ran.
Next, Lasky rushed off to Alaska hoping to strike gold, as did so many other young men during the late nineteenth century. Like Sid Grauman, however, he found that gold could be elusive. He purchased what he thought was a gold mine near Nome. As it turned out, the con man that sold him the property had just ‘salted’ it with gold dust when Lasky wasn’t looking. Now totally broke, he took a job playing his cornet in an Alaskan bar called The Sourdough Saloon. Musically inclined from childhood, he continued honing his skill and was now adept at playing. From The Yukon, he traveled to Hawaii where he once again played his cornet—this time with the Royal Hawaiian Band and the only non-islander in the group.
In 1901, Lasky returned home to reconnect with his younger sister Blanche, an accomplished cornetist herself. The two formed a brother-sister act and hit the vaudeville circuit blowing their dueling horns. After several years of performing and traveling together, the pair grew tired of life on the road and Lasky turned to the business side of vaudeville. Like other early movie pioneers, he also had a knack for discovering talent. He became a booking agent in New York where he found jobs for various acts while Blanche stayed home with her mother—not uncommon for a young, single woman at that time.
Three years later, while vacationing in the Adirondacks, Lasky met artist, poet and accomplished pianist Bessie Mona Ginzberg of Boston. Despite a disastrous date where the slender, dark-haired Bessie toppled out of their canoe and into a local lake, sh
e married him on December 11, 1909. With a little help from Bessie, sister Blanche also found herself a mate—glove salesman Samuel Goldfish who later changed his name to Goldwyn.
Goldfish cut a fine figure. He’d come a long way since his early days in Poland where he was known as Schmuel Gelbfisz. Penniless, he had walked across Europe finally stopping in England where he took the name Samuel Goldfish. He eventually immigrated to the United States by way of Canada. Goldfish found work at a glove factory in Gloversville located in upstate New York. At the time, Gloversville, as the name would imply, was the hub of American glove manufacturing with multiple factories churning out all sorts of hand wear for both men and women.
Goldfish worked hard and eventually became a successful salesman for the Elite Glove Company. Always looking sharp, he wore only the best suits with accessories to match—all the way down to the sheen cast by his dapper shoes. He never carried a wallet or change in his pocket. It was important to steer clear of any noticeable bulges that might disrupt his flawless facade. With his eye-catching wardrobe, he traveled from city to city throughout New England and upstate New York peddling gloves of every kind. The chic image he created for himself worked. He made sales earning about $15,000 each year—and women noticed him. Goldfish, however, was fond of his boss’s niece—Bessie Ginzberg.
Much to Goldfish’s disappointment, Ginzberg chose the young entertainment entrepreneur, Lasky. After they were wed, Bessie invited Goldfish to dinner where she introduced him to her new sister-in-law, Blanche. Theirs may not have been a match made in heaven, but a matter of two people who were unhappy with the single life. Goldfish soon married into the family and tired of the glove business. He wanted to try something new and the idea of flickers excited him, but he needed a partner. Who better than Blanche’s brother, a man already established in show business? To Goldfish’s dismay, Lasky didn’t share his enthusiasm. He had reservations about endorsing a new medium that might rival the theater. Lasky offered another idea. He thought they should corner the tamale market in New York: “I know a business that would be wonderful—tamales. They make them in San Francisco. In the east, you never hear about them.”
Goldfish, however, wouldn’t let go of his dream and tamales did not seem like a rewarding alternative. Helping his cause was the huge financial loss that Lasky took in 1911 when his private venture, the Folies Bergère, didn’t pan out. The elaborate restaurant/cabaret that Lasky built near Times Square was modeled after the famed French nightclub of the same name. Despite featuring the seductive Mae West, his establishment folded after a disappointing five months due to a lack of paying customers. The failed enterprise cost Lasky more than $100,000. All the while, Goldfish continued pestering his brother-in-law about the movies.
Following the Folies Bergère fiasco, Lasky bought the rights to an operetta called California. He needed someone to adapt it for the vaudeville stage. Accomplished playwright William DeMille, who had written The Warrens of Virginia, was at the top of his list. He visited the office of agent Beatrice DeMille to request her eldest son for the job, but Beatrice had other ideas. William was busy so she insisted that Lasky use her younger son Cecil who, with a wife and young daughter to care for, needed the work.
Cecil Blount DeMille was born on August 12, 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and was named after his grandmothers, Cecilia Wolff and Margaret Blount Hoyt. The second son of Henry Churchill DeMille and his British-born wife, actress Matilda Beatrice Samuel, Cecil had an older brother, William. Little sister Agnes followed in 1891. Henry, whose family came to America in 1658, was of Dutch descent, while Beatrice had a Jewish heritage. A former actor, Henry taught school, worked as a lay reader in his Episcopalian church and wrote plays on the side.
In the evenings, Henry would read the bible to his sons—one chapter from the Old Testament and one from the New. He followed the scripture readings with classic literature written by celebrated novelists such as Victor Hugo and William Thackeray. Eventually, Henry teamed up with legendary theater producer and playwright David Belasco and earned enough money penning plays to quit his day job. On the verge of a promising writing career, Henry caught typhoid fever and died on February 10, 1893 at the age of thirty-nine. Two years later, the DeMilles were once again shaken by loss when four-year-old Agnes died from spinal meningitis.
Now the sole provider for two young sons, Beatrice went to work. She became a playwright herself in addition to opening an agency with an office on Broadway. She also established a school called The Henry C. DeMille School for Girls adjacent to the historic family home, Pamlico, in Pompton, New Jersey. The house was named after the Pamlico River, which ran near Henry’s boyhood home in Washington, North Carolina.
At fifteen, Cecil went to military school in Chester, Pennsylvania. A shrewd woman, Beatrice managed a trade-off—Cecil’s tuition requirements were met by allowing the headmaster’s daughter to attend the DeMille school at no charge. Cecil, however, was more intrigued with military life than military school. In 1898, The Spanish-American War fired him up. Determined to fight, he left the educational institution for the army, but his tender age was against him. The Army sent him packing—he was too young to enlist. Instead, he entered the New York American Academy of Dramatic Arts, an unlikely substitute, but considering both his parents’ theatrical background, it was no surprise that DeMille chose to act upon his rejection from the Army. He talked about his early years on stage: “Kind-hearted publicists who have written about me have sometimes said that I became an actor in order to learn production. The facts are more elemental. I became an actor in order to eat.”
While working in the play Hearts Are Trumps, DeMille met actress Constance Adams—eight years his senior and the daughter of New Jersey State Judge Frederick Adams. The couple married at the Judge’s home in East Orange on August 16, 1902. That very same year, Beatrice welcomed a new pupil to her school at the request of socially prominent architect Stanford White. The teenage girl, Evelyn Nesbit, was also White’s lover at the time.
Despite a relatively uneventful term at school, several years later, Nesbit was embroiled in White’s scandalous murder. Before marrying the wealthy Henry Thaw of Pittsburgh, she ended her relationship with the architect. Her new husband, however, could not get over the fact that his wife had had an affair before their marriage. The unstable Thaw eventually snapped and shot White at the Madison Square Garden Theater in front of a large crowd. Thaw’s ensuing trial revealed a myriad of sexual escapades that included some unusual physical activity involving White and a certain red velvet swing. After such blazing headlines involving a former student, enrollment at the DeMille school declined, and Beatrice was forced to close the establishment and concentrate on her agency where she now represented several clients including writers Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, as well as both of her sons. Playwright William was by far the more successful brother. That’s when Beatrice paired the skeptical Lasky with her youngest boy who in addition to his wife, Constance, now had a young daughter, Cecilia, to support.
Despite Lasky’s initial misgivings about Cecil’s inexperience, DeMille adapted California for the stage and it was a hit both critically and financially. The two men continued their collaboration on several more plays. In the process, they found that they actually liked each other and a long-lasting friendship began. Lasky enjoyed his success while DeMille, unhappy in his brother’s shadow, grew restless. And lurking in the background was Samuel Goldfish—still talking up the potential of movies every chance he got.
Goldfish finally persuaded Lasky, who was once again encouraged by the success of the California play, to create a new film company, which included attorney Arthur Friend as secretary. They called their new business the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. Even Lasky conceded to Sam that this sounded much better than Lasky’s Hot Tamales. Now, with Lasky’s name and financial expertise at the helm and Goldfish ready to sell their goods, all they needed was a director—someone to make the films and manage their creat
ive output. After D.W. Griffith, who had recently directed the gang drama, The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), turned them down because of their inadequate financing, Lasky and Goldfish met DeMille for lunch to discuss their business venture. Instead, DeMille made a startling announcement:
Jesse, I’m pulling out. Broadway’s all right for you—you’re doing well. But I can’t live on the royalties I’m getting, my debts are piling up, and I want to chuck the whole thing. Besides, there’s a revolution going on in Mexico and I’m going down and get in on it—maybe write about it. That’s what I need—a stimulating and colorful change of scene.
According to Lasky, DeMille’s proclamation pushed him over the edge. He did not want his good friend to wander so far off. Lasky impulsively offered DeMille the position of director-general in his new film company, and DeMille accepted on the spot. It was an offer he could not refuse. Now all they had to do was figure out how to make a movie. DeMille, eager to learn the nuances of film versus live theater, went to the Bronx where he visited the Edison studios for a day. There, he watched a scene being filmed. A frightened young girl climbed over a wall and ran down a road where she met a man. The two characters then engaged in an animated conversation, and that was that. Cut. Over and out. DeMille told Lasky and Goldfish: “… If that’s pictures, we can make the best pictures ever made!”
The group then bought the rights to a play called The Squaw Man written by Edwin Milton Royle. Goldfish, ever the salesman, sold hundreds of prints throughout the east coast before the movie was even made. The leading roles went to Broadway actor Dustin Farnum and his girlfriend, actress Winifred Kingston, who came as a package deal. Cameraman Alfredo Gandolfi and experienced Edison director Oscar Apfel also joined the troupe. With DeMille in charge, the group headed to Flagstaff, Arizona in 1913. After all, they would be making a western and Flagstaff would provide an authentic setting. Once they arrived, however, their target city didn’t measure up to DeMille’s expectations. The next time Lasky heard from his director-general was when he received the following wire:
Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy Page 3
