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

by Debra Ann Pawlak

  DeMille, who co-directed the six-reel film with the more experienced filmmaker/mentor Oscar Apfel, went over budget causing Lasky and his brother-in-law-partner, Samuel Goldfish, no end of headaches. The Squaw Man had already been touted, and exhibition rights sold to various distributors throughout multiple states, by Goldfish long before it was finished. Without a back-up plan, Lasky had no choice but to let DeMille carry on in his brazen fashion and complete the film. When it finally came time to exhibit the movie, Lasky and company were forced to stop the very first show. The film jerked inside the projector making the off-kilter picture shake and shiver on-screen. Confusion reigned as a jumble of heads, hands and feet appeared in all sorts of odd places.

  Fearing that their final product was nothing but junk, their large investment lost and their movie-making days over forever, Lasky and DeMille sought technical assistance. They took their film to Sigmund Lubin, a well-known exhibitor from Philadelphia. He quickly found the problem—DeMille had inadvertently punched too many sprocket holes along both sides of the film with sixty-five per foot instead of the customary sixty-four. These sprocket holes were used to pull the film through the projector at a standard pace, which kept the moving picture in sync. Once the film and the sprocket holes were repaired, the movie played without a hitch or a spasm. The crowd-pleasing feature was hardly junk at the end of the day, pulling in more than a quarter million dollars and officially admitting the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company into the movie business as major players.

  A more confident DeMille followed up that first picture with two more hits, The Call of the North (1914) and The Virginian (1914). Now recognized as one of film’s top directors, DeMille along with partners Lasky and Goldfish were part of an elite group of leading moviemakers. The company then bought Stern’s entire barn, as well as the adjoining property. DeMille sent for his wife and daughter and moved the family into a home in Cahuenga Pass. The couple soon adopted a son, John, making them a foursome. DeMille’s older brother, William, was somewhat skeptical about the flicker business, but he conceded and also moved west as head of the Scenario Department.

  Later that same year, DeMille directed another western, Rose of the Rancho (1914). He cast former Universal actress Jeanie Macpherson in the role of Isabelita, the daughter of a ranch owner whose property is seized. While working at Universal, the very feminine Macpherson occasionally directed and wrote photoplays of her own, which intrigued DeMille. He soon noticed her knack for storytelling and took more than a casual liking to the attractive young woman with red hair and dark eyes. The demanding DeMille admired her pluck. Much like the imperious director, the tough-talking Macpherson always gave as good as she got.

  After casting her in two more films, DeMille asked Macpherson to pick up a pen. She developed the photoplay for The Captive (1915), based on DeMille’s stage play by the same name. The story took place in Montenegro during the Balkan Wars and marked the beginning of a life-long professional partnership between the domineering DeMille and the innovative Macpherson who was one of the few people in the business that stood up to him, both personally and professionally. While the ever-tolerant Mrs. DeMille looked the other way, her husband and his new associate also became on-again, off-again lovers, but it was their professional collaboration that far outlasted their clandestine trysts.

  While DeMille and Macpherson were getting better acquainted, Jesse L. Lasky also moved his family to California. Originally from the San Francisco Bay area, he welcomed the chance to return to the warmth of the west coast. By now, Jesse and his wife, Bessie, were parents to a four-year-old son, Jesse Louis, Jr. On the business side, Lasky’s premise was basic—he generally bought the rights to various stage plays intending to turn them into movies. If a theatrical feature could resonate with an audience and sell tickets, the movie version should do the same.

  By 1915, Lasky was in charge of what was now considered one of Hollywood’s most successful motion picture production companies. In order to stay in business and keep making movies, he needed a distributor that would ensure his films reached the widest possible audiences and thus sell the maximum number of tickets. Lasky struck a deal with a new film exchange founded by salesman W.W. Hodkinson who grew up near Utah’s Wasatch Range. Paramount Pictures was the brainchild of Hodkinson and his business partners. It is commonly believed that their snowcapped mountain logo was originally based on one of the larger mountains located in the Wasatch Range—possibly Mount Ben Lomond measuring in at 9,712 feet. Other stories claim that Colorado’s white-topped Pike’s Peak was behind the logo. Whatever inspired him, Hodkinson’s vision of a snow-capped mountain remains firmly linked with Paramount Studios.

  Paramount also distributed films for furrier-turned-film-producer Adolph Zukor, head of the Famous Players Corporation in New York. Zukor, originally from Hungary, was orphaned at an early age and sent to live with his uncle. At sixteen, he realized that Hungary held no future for him and immigrated to New York. He eventually found employment with a furrier and, in what would become his standard operating procedure, he studied every aspect of the fur trade, absorbing even the smallest of details. Within three years of his arrival in the United States, Zukor earned a comfortable living designing furs.

  From New York, he moved to Chicago after a visit to the World’s Fair in the early 1890s. Once in the Windy City, he met fellow furrier Morris Kohn, another Hungarian immigrant. The two men partnered up to form Kohn and Company. While Kohn covered the finances and sales, Zukor designed and created the fashionable furs. Business boomed and when he wasn’t fingering fur, Zukor was courting Kohn’s niece, Lottie Kaufman.

  Out on a date, the couple visited a local theater where they watched an amazing sight—a brief flicker, called May Irwin Kiss (1896). The short film depicted theatrical players May Irwin and John C. Rice engaged in a lingering kiss—a shocking demonstration of intimacy for the day along with a display of movement that left patrons wanting more. Despite the great success of Kohn and Company, the image of that kiss remained in Zukor’s head—even after he married Lottie and returned to New York to expand the fur business.

  Once in New York, Zukor’s cousin approached him about investing in a penny arcade. Zukor and Kohn not only came up with the money, but were so impressed with the peep shows and moving pictures, they opened a nickelodeon of their own called Automatic Vaudeville. Intrigued by their new business and the hundreds of dollars taken in each day, the two partners established Automatic Vaudeville arcades in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. With ticket money pouring in, the partners lost interest in minks and sables. Kohn and Company was dissolved allowing the men more time for their entertainment business. By 1910, Kohn and Zukor joined another former furrier, Marcus Loew, who already owned and operated his own chain of theaters. The group formed Loew’s Consolidated Enterprises with Zukor as treasurer.

  Still infatuated with moving pictures, but not happy with the partnership, Zukor eventually dropped out of the business to strike out on his own. He realized early on that motion pictures were more than just a passing fad. Creating flickers, not just exhibiting them, could easily morph into big business and he wanted in. For the next several years, Zukor methodically studied and learned everything he could about the movies. In the end, he came up with a similar conclusion to Lasky’s—movies were just another version of theatrical plays. He penned the words “Famous Players in Famous Plays,” which later translated to “The Famous Players Film Company” and set up his shop near New York’s theater district.

  Zukor knew he could not succeed alone so he recruited more experienced filmmakers such as Edwin Porter, who wrote and directed The Great Train Robbery (1903), a flicker that was by and large a household name. By 1913, Zukor had expanded his enterprise and filmed several successful features including classic tales like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Prisoner of Zenda, both directed by Porter. Zukor also had a certain curly-haired girl named Mary Pickford under contract. Pickford had left Biograph and returned to Bro
adway only to realize that she missed making films. With Zukor, Pickford perfected her innocent-young-girl-who-conquers-all persona in movies like Heart’s Adrift (1914), another Porter film—this one penned by the star herself. Spectators always favored Pickford, but now they fell in love with the impish girl they adoringly called their “sweetheart” and her film legacy as “America’s Sweetheart” was cemented.

  At home, the grown-up Pickford had not yet met the dashing Douglas Fairbanks, but lived within the constraints of a messy marriage with actor husband Owen Moore. He was hardly the Prince Charming he portrayed opposite his wife’s starring turn in the fairytale movie Cinderella (1914). Off-screen, a drunken Moore often belittled her—jealous of her success, as well as the unshakeable bond she shared with her mother. Charlotte was always displeased that Mary had tied herself to a drunk, despite her own unsavory experience with a bottle-toting husband decades before. Pickford left Moore again and again only to return once he sobered up and begged her forgiveness.

  While her relationship with Moore remained anything but amorous, Pickford took a liking to her cigar-smoking boss. He was hardly anyone’s favorite. Most of Zukor’s subordinates referred to him as “Creepy” when he wasn’t around. Not Pickford. Perhaps because she always lacked a strong man in her personal life from her father to her husband, she looked up to Zukor and called him “Papa.” In turn, Papa Zukor, with an unusual display of warmth, referred to Pickford as his “sweetheart honey.” Their chaste father-daughter relationship would continue as long as they worked together.

  By now, Zukor, much like Lasky, was a major industry force and known throughout the motion picture business in America as well as Europe. Both the Famous Players and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Companies distributed their features through Hodkinson’s exchange. Their movies represented the vast majority of Paramount’s films. Unlike Lasky, however, Zukor wasn’t satisfied. He took note of The Squaw Man (1914) and its box office success, and then wired his congratulations to Lasky. The movie shark was circling.

  If filmmaking creates strange bedfellows, Lasky and Zukor were among the oddest of couples. While both men built their success on turning screenplays into films, the easygoing Lasky who loved his work and his company was the complete opposite of the ruthless Zukor whose drive to succeed dominated every calculating decision he made. The well-liked Lasky was often called “the nicest man in show business” while “Creepy” Zukor was known best for his coldness and cunning. Zukor slowly gained Lasky’s trust and when the two finally joined forces on June 28, 1916, they created the world’s largest motion picture company to date, known as the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.

  With Zukor as President and Lasky as Vice-President in Charge of Production, DeMille retained his title of Director General and Goldfish became Chairman of the Board. The outspoken Goldfish, however, soon fell out of favor with Zukor who simply could not handle someone questioning his authority. Now divorced from Lasky’s sister, Blanche, Goldfish no longer fit in with the business or the family. In the end, the overpowering Zukor won out. Goldfish was given almost one million dollars to resign, but his career in the movies was far from over. He would soon team up with another partner, Edgar Selwyn, to form Goldwyn Pictures Corporation—the company that would one day become part of the great triumvirate, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This new partnership also prompted Goldfish to change his name to Goldwyn.

  With the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation now established, minus the troublesome Goldfish, Zukor and Lasky turned their attention to Paramount Pictures, which had been distributing for them since 1914. The two men pooled their Paramount stock together and seized control of the film exchange effectively ousting the current executives. With all three companies now under his dominion, Zukor’s painstaking methods had finally paid off. He had reached the top of the mountain, from apprentice furrier to media mogul.

  After the merger, Milton E. Hoffman, who was Lasky’s studio manager, stayed on as general manager of the larger company until 1919 when he was sent to England to open their London studio, Famous Players-Lasky British Productions, Limited. Hoffman, accompanied by his wife, Lydia, was optimistic about his mission:

  This will be my first trip to London and I anticipate a busy and enjoyable time under the new auspices. While it is true that since the beginning of the war production activities in England have been more or less at a standstill, the pictures that had been made up to that time had shown an unusual amount of real quality and I am satisfied that, with a foundation of this kind to build upon, there should be no difficulty in again reaching that standard and maintaining it.

  Hoffman was right. Talent awaited him in Britain. After outfitting the old power station on Poole Street with two stages, several workshops, and the newest filmmaking equipment available, the production company got down to business. Under Hoffman’s guidance, the new studio began manufacturing quality movies. Many of the London facility’s first films, including The Call of Youth (1921) and The Great Day (1921), employed the services of a young but gifted title writer by the name of Alfred Hitchcock.

  In addition to Hoffman, Lasky also hired one of filmdom’s original scenarists, Frank E. Woods, as Supervising Director. The forward-thinking Woods is credited with developing new production methods such as regular writers’ meetings, story conferences and individual production units headed by a single supervisor. During his off time, he also helped create the Actors Fund Motion Picture Committee and served as the group’s first chairman. Through this group, any person who worked in the motion picture industry for at least one year could submit an application requesting personal financial assistance. The committee reviewed each one and granted aid to “the sick and those in destitute circumstances.” It seems that even the bigwigs did not forget when they too once struggled to make ends meet.

  By 1921 Woods had climbed to Supervisor and Chief of all studio activities under Zukor and Lasky. That same year, when one of their own, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, encountered unfounded manslaughter charges, Woods commented on the unfortunate situation to the press:

  … I should like to say a good word for Arbuckle now that everyone is kicking him when he is down. He was simply guilty of trying to be a good fellow, and I, for one cannot believe that he is guilty of all of the crime charges against him. The public knows, however, that he did not live a sane, regular life, and that he thought only of pleasures of eating and drinking, and the public has put its stamp of disapproval on his conduct. He gave parties in his Los Angeles home that, in those days now past, many prominent people of this city were glad to attend, but now that he is down, these people are kicking him.

  Amidst all the corporate switching and twitching, DeMille and Jeanie Macpherson were still making movies together. In 1916, they took on their first historical epic based on the life of the French-warrior-saint, Joan of Arc. Driven by authenticity, DeMille recreated replicas of medieval buildings still standing in France and used real period weapons purchased from various museums. He cast famed opera singer and silent screen star, Geraldine Farrar in the title role. While DeMille focused on the pomp and circumstance, Macpherson emphasized Joan’s human side. She wrote the part depicting a young, bewildered woman who wanted to do the right thing during extraordinary times. It was Macpherson’s idea to call the movie Joan the Woman, which captured the person instead of the saint. Macpherson once explained her philosophy:

  … The pictorial qualities of a photoplay will always be important, but what people want to see is what happens to the hero, the heroine and the other integral characters. It’s the reaction between humans not beautiful backgrounds although of course beauty of a background helps to distinguish a poorly from a well-built picture …

  In that sense, DeMille’s desire for grandeur and Macpherson’s need for personalization complemented each other and made for some spectacular motion pictures. Despite DeMille’s best efforts and the critics’ approval, Joan the Woman (1916) wasn’t one of them. Perhaps part of the problem was the forty-four-y
ear-old actress trying to play a teenager. Whatever the reason, the poor ticket sales sent the director’s career into a temporary downswing and only added to his already tense relationship with Zukor whom he found domineering and unreasonable, traits that grated on DeMille.

  Despite the disappointing box office for Joan the Woman, DeMille and Macpherson continued their on-and-off-screen pairings. By 1919, they had adjacent offices at the studio, as well as his and hers pilot licenses. DeMille not only owned a plane, he formed the Mercury Aviation Company, considered California’s first commercial airline. Located at Fairfax Avenue and Melrose, the “DeMille Field” offered charter flights, flying lessons and sightseeing tours—from the air, of course. They also flew regularly scheduled roundtrip passenger flights to surrounding areas like Catalina Island and Pasadena. In addition, the airfield was home to filmmakers who soon realized that aeronautical thrills equated to box office dollars. Many early aviators were often willing to loop de loop, wing walk or parachute out of a burning plane for a good price and a little publicity.

  In between directing and flying, DeMille and Constance expanded their family, his affair with Macpherson notwithstanding. The couple adopted a daughter, Katherine Lester, in 1920. The nine-year-old was left without parents after her father died in The Great War followed by her mother who succumbed to tuberculosis. Two years later, they adopted their final child, Richard. The family claimed he was a foundling, but the boy displayed a remarkable resemblance to the DeMille side of the house.

  As another frequent flyer, Macpherson was recognized as one of the most able aviatrixes in the country. An expert stunt flyer, she often took part in air shows, or circuses as they were sometimes called, and displayed her flying mettle in her Curtiss aeroplane. She learned from the best like stunt pilot Ormer “Ormi” Locklear, world-famous for his above-ground tricks and steely nerves. The two flew together often and Macpherson carried a deep respect for Locklear’s airborne skills. When he died in a fiery crash while filming his second movie, The Skywayman (1920), the normally unruffled Macpherson was shaken. The crash itself was caught on film and used in the movie’s final cut.