A small man with a large personality, the younger Loeb attracted many more movie clients to the firm such as Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin. He often represented legal matters for the major studios as well. While Joseph was serious and refined, his gregarious kid brother liked to laugh and tell a rowdy tale. He also delighted in a good hand of poker. It wasn’t unusual for the likes of Carl Laemmle, Irving Thalberg or Louis B. Mayer to deal in on a regular basis.
In the early days, the Loebs had no legal assistants or office managers. Edwin and his secretary ran the place. At home, the younger Loeb partnered up with Bessie Brenner, the daughter of San Francisco business leader and Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee Gustave Brenner, and his wife, Julia. While Loeb took care of the legal business, his wife took care of the homefront. Subsequently, they had two daughters, Marjorie and Virginia.
As their law practice flourished with Hollywood-related business and otherwise, another bright young attorney signed up for duty at Loeb and Loeb—George Washington Cohen. Like Leopold Loeb and Harris New-mark, Cohen’s father, Isaac, was a long-time and well-respected Jewish resident of the Los Angeles area. Cohen was originally born in Germany and settled in San Francisco in 1868 after a brief stop in Kentucky. On May 2, 1887, he married the German-born Emma Stencel. The couple moved to Los Angeles and Isaac worked for the Internal Revenue Office for the next five years. He eventually moved to Redondo Beach and then to Anaheim where he served as mayor for two years in each city. The Cohens then returned to Los Angeles and Isaac entered the clothing business.
Their eldest child and only daughter, red-haired Gertrude, was an accomplished pianist by the time she was ten. When the brilliant musician Ignace jan Paderewski heard her play, he was so impressed that he suggested she study music in Europe. He even arranged a meeting with renowned composer and teacher Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. After studying with Leschetizky for three years, Gertrude went on to enjoy a successful professional career. The Cohens also had a son, Herbert, who joined the family business until 1914 when he opened his own store selling furniture. When the United States entered The Great War, Herbert sold his company and enlisted. He was assigned to the aeroplane division and served out his time in Oregon.
George was the youngest Cohen and a great debater. While attending Los Angeles High, he represented the school in six interscholastic debates winning them all. He even took the first place gold medal in a championship debate against Anaheim. In 1916, while attending the University of California, Berkeley, one of his professors urged he be given a spot on the senior debate team even though he was just a junior. As a result, he won the Carnot Medal—the highest debating honor in the West. After winning the prestigious award, he wired his parents one brief word: “Yes!” He must have been all talked out.
Baron Pierre de Coubertin established the Carnot Medal in 1894 specifically for debating contests between students of the University of California and Stanford. His one stipulation was that the debate itself had to center on contemporary French politics. The medal was named after the recently assassinated President of France, Marie Francois Sadi Carnot. In addition to the debate award, de Coubertin is also considered the founder of the modern-day Olympics.
After his win, Cohen was elected president of his senior class. Like his older brother, he also enlisted during World War I. He was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and earned a lieutenant’s commission. During wartime, Cohen was sent to various training camps including The Presidio. By the time he was twenty-two, he was a captain and on his way to the French battlefields when the fighting ended. Cohen returned home in January 1919 and that fall attended Harvard University’s law school.
Cohen passed the bar in 1921. He then married Carolyn Furth. Her brother, Albert, eventually rose to the position of assistant editorial director to Henry R. Luce, editor-in-chief of Time-Life fame. The Cohens had their first son, Donald, in 1924—the same year Cohen joined the law firm of Loeb & Loeb. The circle of Hollywood’s legal protectors was expanding.
Unlike Loeb and Cohen, Frederick William Beetson was not a native Californian. He hailed from New York where he was born on February 26, 1880 to his father, Frederick who worked in the silk industry and his wife, Margaret. The couple also had a daughter, Fredericka, born two years earlier. Brother Frank came along in 1882. As a young man, Beetson worked in sales traveling throughout the east coast and Midwest. He also met a girl named Mabel.
Mabel Duryea Mitchell was the daughter of Herbert James Frost and Alice Duryea. In 1896, her father founded Frost and Company, which specialized in the selling of fishing equipment. Her mother was a member of the prominent Duryea family who established the Duryea Starch Manufacturing Company in New York City. Beetson wed Mabel on May 17, 1905 and following their nuptials, the newlyweds sailed to Europe for a two-month honeymoon. Seven years later, they had a son, Frederick William Beetson, III.
When the United States entered World War I after the sinking of the Lusitania, which killed theatrical producer Charles Frohman, Beetson was thirty-eight years old, living in Washington D.C. and working as the Assistant Secretary to the Republican National Committee. The Republican National Committee Chairman, William Harrison Hays, Sr., was also a lawyer and savvy campaign manager for presidential candidate Warren G. Harding. In 1921, the newly elected president appointed Hays to the office of Postmaster General. Within one year, Hays resigned from his official position to take on the presidency of the newly formed Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).
Prior to the MPPDA, the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 after New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. revoked motion-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve, 1908. The board was meant to establish some form of early censorship and give the thumbs-up or sometimes thumbs-down to newly released films. For decades starting in 1916, many movies carried the words “Passed by the National Board of Review” for the public to see.
By the time Hollywood entered the Roaring Twenties under the auspices of Prohibition and scandal after scandal hit, from drugs to murder, like that of director William Desmond Taylor, a stamp of approval from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures wasn’t enough. Tales of sensational murders, violent rapes, illegal drugs, illicit love affairs, underground abortions and heavy drinking despite the liquor ban, resulted in a major public outcry directed at what they now called “Sin City.” The press ran with each titillating tidbit, selling out their print run with each sordid headline. Well-respected church groups condemned the industry urging their faithful members to boycott movies. The box office was threatened. Something had to be done to restore Hollywood’s good name and assure stable profits.
Making matters worse, the United States Supreme Court had declared, in the landmark case of Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, that movies were not an art form, but a business and therefore not covered under the Constitution’s First Amendment and freedom of speech. The Ohio State Government had established a censorship board that was responsible for reviewing all films to be shown in the Buckeye State. Anyone running an unapproved film was subject to arrest. The Mutual Film Corporation, a movie distributor, challenged the censorship board’s authority. When the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Ohio’s favor, Hollywood officials worried that Federal censorship of their films was just around the corner. Hays disagreed with the Supreme Court decision when he later stated:
Had motion pictures been in vogue when the Constitution was written, they would have been protected against legislative inroads as were the press and our freedom of speech. For pictures are only another medium of expression.
In the meantime, censorship bills pended in many state legislatures. Local censorship boards popped up from coast to coast banning what they considered immoral movies in an attempt to protect their citizenry, especially their innocent children, from such corruption. Standards varied between cities and states allowing films to be run in one town b
ut forbidden in another. In order to regain some control, Hollywood officials decided to police themselves. They created the MPPDA and called upon Will Hays to commandeer it. After all, he was a well-respected Republican hailing from Indiana and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. What better representative to counter Hollywood’s woes than a Midwestern churchgoer firmly fixed in his conservative beliefs?
Hays wasted no time. One of his first agenda items barred Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle from making movies. Up until Labor Day weekend in 1921, the rotund Arbuckle was by far the most popular film comedian of his time. Spectators couldn’t get enough of his onscreen antics. Literally, overnight something went wrong, however, and Arbuckle fell from grace to become the man everyone hated. That holiday weekend, Arbuckle and his groupies traveled to San Francisco where they partied together at the posh St. Francis Hotel.
One partygoer, actress Virginia Rappé, was not feeling well. It is believed that Rappé may have had several abortions and suffered from gonorrhea at the time. She ultimately died in a San Francisco hospital less than one week after the holiday. There were no signs of rape or violence, but sadistic rumors about Arbuckle persisted and the press vilified him.
The actor was soon summoned back to San Francisco where he was arrested and charged with rape and murder. Three trials later (the first two ended in hung juries), the big man was ultimately cleared from all charges and no one ever proved that a crime actually occurred. Despite his exoneration, Arbuckle remained a pariah for the rest of his days thanks to vicious gossip, the public’s desire to believe he was guilty and Hays’ choice to make him an example of Hollywood excess.
But Hays didn’t stop there. He also developed the infamous “morality clause” that all filmmakers were expected to adhere to in their personal lives or else. Inserted into their contracts, adultery was forbidden, pregnancy outside of marriage was a major offense and any other disgraceful or illegal behavior could result in permanent excommunication from the industry. Of course, one had to first get caught in the dastardly deed before punishment was doled out. Hays’ quick moves publicly demonstrated that Hollywood was serious about cleaning up its act. As a result, moviemakers dodged federal government censorship, which could have set a disastrous precedent in an era of renewed social conservatism.
Once he got things up and running, Hays summoned fellow Republican Fred Beetson to Hollywood to oversee the MPPDA. Beetson, the association’s first secretary and treasurer, also brought along his second wife Minnie, a girl from Maine. Once Hays, now known, as the Movie or Cinema Czar, was satisfied with what he had put in place, he announced in January 1924:
I believe we are on the right track at least. Waste in the production of motion pictures has been the most eminent fault of the industry. It is our purpose to do everything possible to eliminate it.
As second in command at what was dubbed the Hays Office, Beetson’s job was to protect the public from the potential evils of film and he took his work quite seriously. He often mediated volatile issues between filmmakers, his own office and the many censorship boards that cried foul across the country. Beetson even intervened with international censors when the need arose. The Hays Office advised the studios just what these boards would and wouldn’t approve, but it was really anybody’s guess since the boards themselves had no standardization or common denominator between them. A film that might be run in Manhattan or Detroit could be banned in Pittsburgh or Paris.
Censorship, however, wasn’t the only issue that concerned Beetson. He also looked out for the animals that were used on-screen. At the end of 1924, he made an arrangement with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to protect the non-human players. Actor William S. Hart topped off the deal by presenting an ambulance to the Society.
Shortly after he took care of the creatures, Beetson’s attention turned to the screen actors. He met with producers Joseph M. Schenck, John McCormick, Irving Thalberg and Jack Warner to come up with a process for all actors—stars and extras—to present grievances in front of a fair-minded committee in an unbiased arena without consequences. The goal was to seek solutions agreeable to all parties involved, minus any backlash.
Despite the negative hoopla, star-struck hopefuls trying to break into the movies as extras inundated Hollywood. Hays commissioned the Russell Sage Foundation, which specialized in social studies, to investigate and report on conditions related to the extras. Their investigation revealed some disturbing facts. With more people than work available, unscrupulous agents commanded exorbitant fees to find extra roles for their unsuspecting clients, and scam agents sometimes walked away with a significant amount of a desperate actor’s earnings before they wised up. The hopefuls were often mistreated, taken advantage of and lied to. In response, Hays, with Beetson’s help and the approval of the MPPDA, established the Central Casting Corporation in 1926.
This new organization, financed by the producers’ group, provided a registration process and, with one simple phone call, a job hopeful could at no cost find out whether work was available. According to the biennial report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of California, Central Casting also committed to the following:
1. To do away with the high fees charged by private employment agencies to extras in the motion picture industry.
2. To eliminate the violations of the law arising out of methods of paying off the extras.
3. To discourage the constantly increasing influx of persons as extras in the industry, and
4. To develop a residue of efficient extras who would be called upon frequently and who would be able to derive a decent living from the employment as extras.
With Beetson as president, the Central Casting Corporation made the job search much easier for extras and aspiring actors. They no longer had to hustle from studio to studio looking for work. It also helped them avoid schemers. It did not, however, deter men and women from coming to Hollywood hoping to be the next Mary Pickford or Douglas Fairbanks, both of whom by now were huge stars: she “America’s Sweetheart” and he a beloved matinée idol. While hundreds found steady work, thousands registered but remained on the outside looking in.
In a short twenty years, with one World War behind them and Prohibition cramping their style, the movie industry went from John Q. Public’s favorite pastime to national nemesis. With the Temperance Movement already culminating in the banning of alcohol, many so-called civic-minded groups turned their attention to Hollywood where they believed depraved lives of excess and immorality were just waiting to be saved. Where else were divorces so common? Illicit affairs ongoing? Illegal drugs and liquor so brazenly consumed? Crimes covered up? And if the high-paid celebrities were leading exemplary lives then they still had to be guilty of something—like over-the-top indulgences, no matter how harmless they seemed.
Even matinée idol Wallace Reid, who represented the all-American hero with his good looks and strong build, succumbed to a morphine addiction. His untimely death in 1923 at the age of 31 shocked spectators and came on the heels of the Arbuckle scandal and the William Desmond Taylor murder. Instead of playing down her husband’s death, Reid’s widow, former actress Dorothy Davenport, spoke out touring the country denouncing drugs and warning anyone who would listen of their deadly ramifications.
Of course, scandal also sold newspapers and magazines so the press gladly reported each and every one whether they actually happened or not. A bloodthirsty public soaked up one salacious story after the other reading with enthusiasm, but condemning the evildoers all the same.
The hardworking men and women in the industry found that along with making movies, defending Hollywood became a full-time job as well. In order to keep business going, filmmakers had to protect their investments and clean up their acts—literally. While lawyers like Loeb and Cohen assisted with legalities ensuring that business matters stayed above the law, Hays and Beetson struggled to protect the citizenry from those wicked Hollywood hooligans and their potentially corrupting influence, along with some ge
nuine scam artists and predators.
Would all of their efforts make things right? Would the public once again embrace the movies? Could a crisis be reined in or did Hollywood higher-ups need to take control and write their own happy ending?
In 1927, thirty-six top movie officials opted for the latter.
Part Two
YOU AIN’T HEARD
NOTHIN’ YET!
Chapter Eleven
ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN
After director Cecil B. DeMille decided Flagstaff, Arizona wasn’t the right place to film his feature The Squaw Man way back in 1914, he and his troop from the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company continued heading west. The group ultimately set up shop inside of a horse barn about ten miles north of Los Angeles in a dusty little town that locals called Hollywood. The film company shared the space on Selma Avenue and Vine Street with barn owner Jacob Stern who reserved just enough room for his horses and carriage. DeMille recalled keeping a waste can handy, describing it as “a very convenient refuge for my feet whenever Mr. Stern washed his carriage and the water ran under my desk.”
By the time Lasky himself paid a visit to the barn, filming was well underway. The story centered on an innocent Englishman, played by actor Dustin Farnum, who took the fall for embezzlement charges on behalf of his cousin, the earl. The gentleman leaves his homeland in shame for America’s Wild West where he tries his hand at cattle ranching. He also meets and falls in love with an Indian girl, Nat-U-Ritch, portrayed by the Native American actress Red Wing. Meanwhile, the real crook is killed in a mountain climbing accident, but just before he goes on to his greater reward—or not—he pens a note admitting to his dastardly deed paving the way for our hero’s triumphant return to England. Of course in between, there is plenty of gunslinging, brawling and even a daring rescue at sea.
Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy Page 14
