Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy

by Debra Ann Pawlak

  But all wasn’t perfect in the big city. A few months later, Levee and his sister, Rose, were returning home after attending the 1923 opening of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel when they, along with another couple, were robbed. The quick-thinking Rose slipped an expensive ring in her mouth when she saw the thugs approaching. Levee tossed another ring away from the melee. Despite their efforts, the thieves still got away with brooches, bracelets, watches and cash. Their booty was estimated at more than $17,000.

  In addition to crime fighting, memories of the summer love affair between the City of Angels and the motion picture industry ran short. When the Western Motion Picture Advertisers’ Association (WAMPAS) planned their annual splash—the WAMPAS Ball, Mayer Cryer refused their request to allow dancing after midnight. When group officials protested saying that they had been given permission to rumba after hours during past balls, Cryer stood firm. He claimed that anyone who allowed such a thing was acting beyond their authority. There would be no two-stepping in Los Angeles after midnight. WAMPAS moved their next ball to San Francisco.

  By now, Joseph M. Schenck was firmly fixed as Chairman of the Board with Levee maintaining his position of president and studio manager at Universal Studios, Inc. In between the birth of his second son, John Harrison, and running the business, Levee continued touting Los Angeles. He tirelessly pursued east coast production companies enticing them to film at the new and improved California facility. Levee told the press:

  Many producers, who have never made their pictures here before are coming to Los Angeles … Never in the history of Los Angeles film production has the outlook been so encouraging.… Producers in the East have at last seen the light.

  A big coup for Levee occurred in 1924. With Schenck’s backing, he offered the use of United Studios to producer J.D. Williams, president of Ritz-Carlton Productions, persuading him to move west and bring his most famous player with him—Latin heartthrob Rudolph Valentino.

  But Schenck wasn’t the only producer who had amusement park roots. Milton Ely Hoffman once earned his living at a popular park located in Cleveland, Ohio—his birthplace. Hoffman was born on December 15, 1879, the first child of Simon and his wife, Rose Wolf. The couple had another son, Bert, in 1881 and daughter, Sylvia, in 1886.

  Hoffman’s career began in Cleveland where he was manager and publicity man for a local theater, The Coliseum Garden. He also had a brief stint as manager of Luna Park, which was established by Fred Ingersoll, a well-known maker of amusement park rides. The 35-acre playground opened in 1905 and soon became known as “Cleveland’s fairyland of pleasure.” Hoffman’s first major venture into the world of film occurred in Michigan where he worked for Philip Gleichman at The National Film Company of Detroit headquartered in the downtown area. This outfit specialized in actologues—troupes made up of several “talkers” who stood behind the movie screens and spoke lines as the film rolled.

  After Detroit, Hoffman served double duty as a manager and publicity agent for various theatrical stock companies with such well-known vaudeville names as Vaughn Glaser and Felix Isman. His work eventually brought him to New York. By 1910, he was living in Brooklyn with his sister, Sylvia, and her husband, Bernard Feigenbaur. Striking out on his own, Hoffman staged a well-received production of The Blindness of Virtue in Chicago, which was later turned into a movie by the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. In 1913, the thirty-something Hoffman once again connected with former Detroiter Philip Gleichman who was now running the World Special Films Corporation in New York. The December 6, 1913 issue of The Moving Picture World had this to say about Gleichman’s new hard-working publicity man:

  … With his personality there is no telling how much higher he will yet rise in his profession. He has an easy, imperturbable way and a capacity for getting through a lot of work without any fuss. He is a bear for system, and his chief delight is in bringing order out of chaos. As a press agent he has the right perspective, knowing full well that he is employed to advertise the production he is with and not himself. Perhaps the most surprised man on earth will be Milton Hoffman when he reads this sketch. He may even be a little angry because this space is used for him instead of his company … The picture [that accompanied the article] was stolen and the facts wheedled out of him with much subtlety.…

  As busy as he was, Hoffman still found time for romance. He wooed bookkeeper Lydia Koch, a native New Yorker. Her parents, August and Flora, came to the United States from Germany in 1888. They settled in New York where August worked as a carpenter. Despite their thirteen-year age difference, Hoffman married the younger girl on October 14, 1914.

  Two years later, when Jesse L. Lasky came calling, Hoffman was general manager at the Peerless Feature Producing Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Lasky lured him away with a job offer on the west coast. Always willing to move, Hoffman packed up—this time with Lydia—and on April Fools Day, 1916, he began working in Hollywood as studio manager of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. A baseball fan, Hoffman quickly organized a studio team and arranged for uniforms. Unfortunately, they lost their first game 6-4 when they played against the Hollywood Business Men’s Association.

  Later on, when Lasky’s company merged with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players, Hoffman took on the challenge of general manager for the entire enterprise. After the Great War, Lasky established a studio in England. Located in London and housed at a large facility that was once a power station for the railroad, the building was extensively remodeled and the latest filmmaking equipment installed. In 1919, Lasky chose Hoffman to oversee his Famous Players-Lasky British Productions Limited, but this was small potatoes. Upon Hoffman’s return to the States, he would be in the driver’s seat when Hollywood officials decided to build a city.

  Irving Grant Thalberg was in charge of another Hollywood city—Universal. A driven trailblazer, the twenty-year-old Thalberg whirled into movies before he could vote—despite his precarious health. Thalberg’s story began on May 30, 1899 in Brooklyn. William, his father, was a passive man from Germany who imported lace. His mother, Henrietta Heymann, had all the family ambition. When doctors diagnosed the baby with a heart defect, they warned that he probably wouldn’t live much past his thirtieth birthday. William resigned himself to his son’s poor health. Henrietta had other ideas.

  Thalberg spent his first seven years in bed while his mother took charge. She bathed, massaged, and encouraged him, determined that he’d eventually attend school. Doctors cautioned against it, but Henrietta firmly believed that her son needed an education. She refused to think otherwise and eventually got her way.

  Young Thalberg may have faced more than his share of physical problems, but once enrolled in school, he excelled. Impressed with his smarts, many of his teachers tutored him at home when he was not well enough to attend class. He devoured books and through his reading he came to understand the makings of a good story. After a bout of rheumatic fever, which further damaged his heart, Thalberg graduated from high school. Believing college was a waste of his potentially limited time, he enrolled in secretarial classes. This, he thought, would be the quickest means to find a job—and he was right. His knack for typing and shorthand bought him a one-way ticket to the movies.

  Thalberg became secretary to the general manager at New York’s Universal Film Manufacturing Company founded by Carl Laemmle. Earning $25 a week, he quickly proved himself and before long became Laemmle’s secretary. In between making appointments and handling correspondence, Thalberg previewed movies with the boss who came to value his young assistant’s opinions. Universal actress Dagmar Godowsky recalled those very early days:

  When I was with Universal, I go in to see my general manager, and there was a very young man with a desk who took messages, and I would sit on the desk and talk to him. I thought he’d get places. He was intelligent and nice. We became great friends. He got ill, and I used to send my chauffeur over with chicken broth …

  When Laemmle traveled to California’s Universal City, he took his tru
sted secretary with him. During his first trip out west, Thalberg absorbed everything he could about moviemaking. He explored the studio and studied the dynamics that made it run—or not run. The three men in charge of the west coast facility couldn’t agree on anything and as a result, the place was in an uproar. As headline talent fled to other studios, Universal’s bottom line suffered. Instead of firing the middle-aged executives, however, Laemmle added a fourth—twenty-year-old Thalberg.

  The three chiefs were outraged. They resented the youngster’s intrusion. The head honchos tried to oust him, but Thalberg had something they didn’t—the backing of Carl Laemmle. Within six months, Thalberg offered his documented assessment to the boss: the studio was failing because of bad management and bad movies. He suggested that one person oversee all production. Laemmle gave him the job. Thalberg, as the new General Manager, took charge with an energy that belied his delicate heart.

  Now earning $450 each week, Thalberg dealt with talent agents, held writer’s conferences, met with casting, viewed newly filmed scenes and edited final cuts. With his uncanny flair for storytelling and unwavering self-assurance, he touched every film around him. In between his many daily duties, he also managed sudden emergencies as well as difficult directors. When he took on the formidable Erich von Stroheim, Hollywood was stunned.

  Von Stroheim went over budget while filming Foolish Wives (1922) at Universal. He resented young Thalberg for questioning his lavish spending. Thalberg realized that stopping production wasn’t financially smart, but he kept close watch on both the filming and the cost. Once he felt enough footage was shot, he simply took the cameras away. The unhappy von Stroheim’s final cut ran more than five hours. Thalberg pared it down to three.

  The Thalberg-von Stroheim feud continued into their next production, Merry-Go-Round (1923). The director went on overspending as the general manager kept tabs. After six weeks and with only a quarter of the filming completed, Thalberg had enough. He fired von Stroheim who went straight to Laemmle who stood firm behind his general manager. Von Stroheim was out and Hollywood reeled with the news of the boyish producer who dared stand up to the overbearing director.

  In just three and a half years, Thalberg restructured Universal, improved its efficiency, oversaw the making of more than 100 movies, retained talent through better contracts and most importantly, increased profits. The Hollywood heavyweights took note. So did writer Malcolm Stuart Boylan who penned an article for the L.A. Times entitled Great Executiv Job Held By a Boy of 22—How Irving Thalberg Became the “Big Boss” of One of the Biggest Institutions in the World. Boylan listed Thalberg’s “rules of success”:

  •

  Never hold an unassailable opinion

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  The clearness with which I see my goal determines my speed in reaching it

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  Expect help from no one

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  Pride goeth before a fall. The height of the pride determines the severity of the bump

  •

  Never take any man’s opinion as final

  Laemmle’s daughter, Rosabelle, also took note of the powerful yet frail-looking fellow. She liked Thalberg, who was quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors. The pair dated for a while with Laemmle’s approval. Henrietta, however, wasn’t buying into any marriage business. Now living with her son, she felt that, physically, married life would be too taxing on his delicate health. Thalberg himself didn’t seem overly eager to commit to the boss’ daughter either. This caused Laemmle to revise his opinion of the boy genius. Now worried about someone with a heart condition controlling his empire and feeling threatened by Thalberg’s authority, Laemmle refused him a raise. Their relationship soured and Thalberg went looking for another job.

  Producing a movie was not for the faint-hearted. The job demanded stamina and an endless supply of energy—or in Thalberg’s case, willpower. Between bossy mothers, dictatorial directors and over-the-top exhibitions, the head of the house took charge of the mayhem and managed to make a buck.

  Chapter Ten

  THE GUARDIANS

  Once Harris Newmark came to Los Angeles in 1853, the City of Angels was never the same. That April, the Prussian-born lad followed his older brother, Joseph, and sailed from Europe to New York. He then bought passage on a second ship, which traveled through the Isthmus of Panama before reaching San Francisco. From the City by the Bay, he boarded a steamer that finally docked in San Pedro, California in October 1853 to complete his six-month journey.

  Upon his arrival, Newmark spoke several languages, but English wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t until his aunt and uncle immigrated the following year that he learned to read and write the language of his new country. Newmark started out selling groceries and dry goods. He even tried his hand at sheep farming, but it was real estate where he finally prospered.

  A benevolent man who believed in community spirit, once he made his fortune, Newmark founded the Los Angeles Public Library in 1872 as well as the Jewish Orphans Home in 1911. He was also a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and influential in bringing the railroad to the west coast. He penned his memoirs in 1916, Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913, which is still considered one of the finest personal accounts ever written about Southern California history.

  In between his business activities, Newmark married his first cousin, Sarah. The couple had eleven children—five died young while six survived including daughter Estelle, who married Leopold Loeb in 1879.

  Originally from Strasburg in Alsace-Lorraine, Loeb’s parents, Jacob and Rosalie Levi Loeb, were part of a prominent Jewish family that boasted a long line of leaders both spiritual and civic. Loeb’s cousin, Eugene Meyer, was already living in Los Angeles and the established owner of Salmon Lazard, a dry goods store that carried clothes and furniture. Starting out as a clerk in Meyer’s store, Loeb worked his way up over the next several years.

  The Loebs gave Newmark three grandchildren: Rose born in 1881 followed by Joseph in 1883 with Edwin bringing up the rear in 1886. By the time their last child was born, Cousin Meyer had moved to San Francisco and sold Salmon Lazard to Loeb who renamed the store The City of Paris. Meyer also acted as the French Consular Agent and suggested that Loeb fill the vacancy he left behind. Meyer wasn’t just trying to keep things in the family. His recommendation was sound. Loeb provided outstanding service as Consular Agent for over fifteen years. The French government even awarded him the decoration of an Officer of the Academy—one of their highest honors.

  Some of Loeb’s civic-mindedness must have rubbed off on his youngest son. While still a student at the Cambria Street School in 1898, eleven-yearold Edwin composed a patriotic essay about the Spanish-American War:

  Spain when she blew up the Maine little realized that her treacherous crime would be discovered. But she realizes it now, and though she may call us pigs, she little knows what a bull she is making.

  From Cambria Street School, Loeb went on to Los Angeles High. After his 1904 graduation, he enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. While he took his studies seriously, Loeb also found time for extracurricular activities. He co-wrote his sophomore class’ annual burlesque show and called it A Comedy of Terrors. He also entered into an agreement with a fellow student that required both young men to travel around the world in opposite directions and eventually meet in England. The youths planned to cash in by writing magazine articles depicting their journey. Until then, Loeb worked as a cabin boy on the steamship that carried him to Australia.

  After Loeb completed his travels, he received his law degree and passed the bar. He then partnered up with older brother Joseph, already an attorney, and the two founded their law firm in 1909. As lawyers, they made their mark when they represented their enterprising cousin Kaspare Cohn of the Kaspare Cohn Hospital, as well as the Kaspare Cohn Bank—known today as Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Union Bank, respectively.

  Joseph, the more serious brother, took on the regu
lar business accounts, while the outgoing and animated Edwin was a much better fit for the movie colony. It was producer David Horsely of Nestor Studios who first approached Edwin Loeb for legal representation. Horsely had a problem with a couple of filmmaking brothers and he needed a lawyer. He wrote to his New York attorney asking him to recommend a well-versed litigator on the west coast. The east coast lawyer contacted San Francisco attorney Jesse Steinhart who knew the Loeb Brothers quite well. He didn’t hesitate to recommend them for the job. According to Joseph:

  … My brother, Edwin, handled the row. Edwin made such a good arrangement for David Horsely that he was tickled to death. One of these brothers said to Edwin, “Why you dirty little so-and-so, the way you treated us is terrible, and if we ever need a lawyer, we are coming to you.” Believe it or not, he did.

  Then the two of them kept saying to Edwin, “We want you to meet our brother-in-law.” And Edwin would come to me and say, “What shall I do? These boys want me to meet their brother-in-law. I’ve had trouble enough with them.” Finally, one day Edwin said to them, “Who is your brother-in-law?” They said, “He’s Carl Laemmle, the president of Universal Pictures” and so Edwin decided that he would meet the brother-in-law.… and because we handled the case for David Horsely against the brothers-in-law of Carl Laemmle, we got into the motion picture business.…