But our house was no stuffy showcase.
The first time we went looking for a place to build, we were stunned. “No, Fred, I’m sorry,” one of his old friends from college had said, when we inquired about purchasing acreage on one of his hills. “I was so sorry to hear you’d given up the cloth and become an actor. Because I’ve made a point of never selling to Jews and actors.”
And in a flash, I was right back where I’d been nearly ten years ago, when I first arrived in Los Angeles. How some things never changed! Yet how everything had changed since then. Jews and actors had made Los Angeles, giving it an industry, a shimmering place on the world’s map.
“Without Jews and actors you’d be sitting on acreage that you couldn’t give away,” Fred retorted, just as I was about to do the same. “Go to hell, Larry. You call yourself a Christian?”
I had never heard Fred swear. Not once. But I was bursting with pride as he took my arm and ushered me out of the real estate office. “I think I’ve been a bad influence on you,” I whispered, beaming up at his face, which was tight with anger.
“And for that, I thank you,” he replied.
Almost ten years! Ten years since I’d first arrived in Los Angeles, and some things hadn’t changed. But so many things had.
I was the most sought-after screenwriter in the business now, no longer known only as “Mary Pickford’s scenarist.” I’d turned down many offers for long-term contracts at studios, choosing to pick the projects that appealed to me. I’d written pictures for Hearst, not only for Marion Davies but also big successes like Humoresque. At the moment, I was writing for Joe Schenck, movies starring his glamorous, raven-haired wife, Norma Talmadge; sophisticated melodramas, a far cry from the slapstick of my early movies with Mary, like Amarilly of Clothes-Rim Alley and Johanna Enlists. No longer did I only dream up stories featuring a golden-haired little girl; my imagination was given wings by the ever-expanding industry. And how things had changed from the early days of writing on the fly, scribbling as the cameras turned, sometimes writing two pictures in an afternoon—and filming them, too!
Now, I was provided with an office wherever I happened to be working; an office and a secretary. I preferred to write at home, however, in bed; propped up against a wall of pillows, writing in long hand on a little wooden tray desk, or dictating to a secretary who would type everything up. When I was needed at the studio for casting or rewrites, I was chauffeured there in my own car, with my own driver. Films were lush productions now, filmed on great stages with sophisticated arc lights, several cameramen, entire orchestras for mood music, armies of makeup people and wardrobe minions constantly brushing and plucking and powdering stars between takes. And there were many takes; no more rushing to get everything in one, so that the film could be processed and sped into the newest storefront nickelodeon.
Movie theaters were palaces, even in the smallest towns now. Sid Grauman had recently opened up another palace to rival his grand Egyptian Theater; this one was called his Chinese Theater, and the architecture was wildly oriental. Now major films held “premieres” at these theaters; the very first had been Doug’s movie Robin Hood, at the Egyptian. For the first time, crowds had been invited to gape at movie stars walking along a red carpet, enormous klieg lights lighting up the sky for miles and competing with the blinding flash pots of photographers. Fred and I had attended in support of Mary and Doug, still the biggest stars of all.
Studios came and went like the wind, usually failing because of a lack of financial backing or distribution. There were more consolidations, too. But a new studio, rumored to be something different, had just opened its doors, and one day I found myself being interviewed by a man named Louis B. Mayer.
“So this is the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood?” A short dumpling of a man with a beak of a nose, thinning black hair, and round glasses rose from an enormous desk, set high on a platform, to greet me. He dismissed the other men who had been in the room when I entered with a curt nod, save for one. “You stay, Irving.”
The painfully thin, slight young man with enormous, intelligent eyes and a shy smile nodded and held out his hand. “Irving Thalberg, Miss Marion.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” I smiled and ostentatiously arranged my furs—I always wore my furs to business meetings to remind these men that I had earned them myself, that they weren’t gifts—and took a seat.
Louis Mayer resumed his perch on his throne, but smiled benignly at me. Mr. Thalberg took notes.
“The highest-paid and the best screenwriter,” Mayer continued. “I know I’m new out here, but this is going to be the biggest studio of them all someday. And I want you to join us.”
“Mr. Mayer, I’m quite happy working on an independent basis. I don’t like to tie myself to one studio. But I’d be happy to write one picture for you—that is, if you can meet my asking price.”
“Only one? Well, it’s a start.” Mayer smiled, a cunning little smile. “I’m determined to make only pictures that my little daughters, Edith and Irene, can see. Hollywood has to change, after all these scandals. I’m all for Will Hays. Are you?”
I knew how I was supposed to answer, but was reluctant to. I was intimately familiar with the scandals that had plagued the industry. In 1921, Fatty Arbuckle—Roscoe, to those of us who were his friends—had been charged with manslaughter, after a tragic Labor Day party in San Francisco during which one of the guests, a girl named Virginia Rappe, had died. The papers all screamed that she’d died of a ruptured bladder and peritonitis, impaled by either Fatty himself or a soda bottle; it depended on which paper you read.
The truth came out in the courtroom—the girl had a venereal disease, and some said cystitis, which were conditions that could be aggravated by alcohol. No evidence was found of rape. Yet poor Roscoe’s career was over, just like that. And when the director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered a year later, and whispers were that either Mary Miles Minter or Mabel Normand had done it, my beloved Hollywood was suddenly a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. A few years before, these scandals wouldn’t have been national news. Now they were. Because Wall Street had started to invest in studios, smelling the money being made from across the continent. So Wall Street called in a man named Will Hays to oversee the crumbling morals of Hollywood, to ensure that films were made that would not offend, to repair the reputation of this billion-dollar industry so that people in the heartland would still pay for movie tickets.
With the creation of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America—of which Hays was the first president—the industry changed. It started with a banquet in 1922 at the Ambassador Hotel, hosted by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, attended by fifteen hundred industry luminaries such as Gloria Swanson, Cecil B. DeMille, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin—and Fred and Frances Thomson. A banquet in which all of Hollywood crowned this man, whom I thought looked like a vicious little bat with sharp teeth, their savior.
After the banquet, everything changed. Now, every studio had an in-house censor, and I had to submit my treatments to the MPPDA itself before being given the green light. I was told to make my scenarios look sugary and syrupy on paper, but often that wasn’t what ended up being filmed; on the set, we added the same sophisticated, sexy scenes that moviegoers loved.
Yet under this new system, there couldn’t help but be an increase in pablum and I’d stopped reading my reviews. Trying to please everybody meant that nobody was completely satisfied, and we screenwriters were the ones who came under the most criticism.
“So you only want to make wholesome pictures?” I asked, and noticed that Irving Thalberg opened his mouth, then shut it quickly after a swift look from his boss.
“I’m a sucker for humanity,” Mayer replied with another charming, cunning smile, and I had to laugh. We agreed on an appropriate figure, and shook hands.
“I love giving surprises, so in addition to your salary—a check will be delivered this afternoon to your home—I’m giving you a
bonus.”
“Really?” I rose, then allowed myself to be escorted to the door by Mayer. I was taller than he was, but I refused to slouch down to soothe his vanity.
“I respect you, Frances Marion,” Mayer said. Then he pinched my fanny; outraged, I couldn’t prevent a little yelp from escaping. I couldn’t get out of his office fast enough. But I had to laugh when I opened up my “bonus” later that day. It was a photograph of the man himself, inscribed with a flourish.
To a clever young writer
from her friend,
Louis B. Mayer
Remembering how his greedy fingers groped my flesh, however, I threw it in the trash where it belonged.
—
Louis B. Mayer was far from the only man who had pinched my fanny, although as a screenwriter, I was accorded a little more dignity than mere actresses, and counted my blessings. But my friends and I put up with the pinches, the sneers, the slights; it was the price we paid, a new price that hadn’t quite been extracted in the same way years ago, when everyone was a newcomer and there was no hierarchy. What hierarchy there was now was entirely paternal; investors were now producers who could hire and fire at will. Overnight, the casting couch was born. I’d had my shoulder dampened by many a young actress’s shameful, heartbroken tears when, after having done her “duty,” she still wasn’t cast as the love interest in the new Ramon Novarro (or Rudolph Valentino or Wallace Reid) picture.
Even if I didn’t have to suffer the casting couch, I was not entirely immune from the patriarchy. When The Love Light opened, some of the reviews indicated that Mary had played a role not right for her as a favor to her “female scenarist-turned-director.” But when one review howled at the “obvious miniature” used for the shipwreck, saying that “only a woman director would use something so fake,” I was furious. I dashed off a letter explaining how I’d filmed a real boat in an actual storm, at the grave peril of my crew, not to mention my husband. Of course, there was no correction issued.
After that, I wasn’t sure I wanted to direct anymore; I’d never received reviews for my screenplays that were so blatantly sexist. Women were being put in a box now; there were fewer female directors like Lois. Apparently, we were much more palatable as screenwriters and editors, roles that were more collaborative, less authoritative. But Joe Schenck pestered me to direct a film starring Norma, so I agreed. To my immediate regret.
For Schenck had a habit of parading groups of businessmen—investors, theater owners—past me on the set, as if I were a circus sideshow. “Look! There’s our woman director. Surprised, aren’t you, boys, that she’s such a looker?”
“I thought you’d be bigger,” one man said to me.
“I thought you’d be wearing trousers,” another commented, actually reaching out to touch my silk-clad legs. Slapping his hand away, I caught Joe Schenck’s expression, and forced myself to smile demurely, even flirtatiously.
“I prefer satin and diamonds,” I purred, mentally counting the money I had in my bank account, reminding myself of my true worth. “After all, I can afford them.”
Joe and the men laughed. “What a wit,” one said in surprise as they all posed for a photograph. I was so tightly surrounded by men that I couldn’t shrug off the “gentleman” who happened to drape his hand across my breast.
“What’s your husband think about this, honey? Does he mind his wife wearing the pants in the family?”
“I assure you, when we’re at home, my husband wears the pants,” I retorted, with that same tight smile.
“Wait till the little woman at home gets a look at this,” another said. “I hope she doesn’t get any ideas! I’d hate to lose the best little cook in all of Kansas!”
“Only in Hollywood, brother. No women behave like this at home, believe me. They know their place,” one man said—the man who had moments before squeezed my breast as if it were only what he deserved, after all.
Thinking of my paycheck, I managed to wave as Schenck herded all the bulls down the chute and off the set, then I slid off my director’s chair. Storming over to a water cooler, I took a long drink of water—and several deep breaths—before turning around and ordering the crew back to work without my usual apologetic smile. And since when had I started doing that, anyway? Why did I always do something—a little shrug, a smile, a clearing of the throat—before asking, not telling, my cast and crew to hit their marks, set up a shot, roll the camera?
Lois had behaved this way, too, I remembered; her soft femininity, her appealing little glances and gestures. Never outright telling, always suggesting or asking. As if she were presiding over a tea party. Is this how women in power always behaved? I had no idea, because there weren’t that many of them I could ask.
As my crew stared at me, mouths open, I apologized for yelling. Then I despised myself for apologizing.
Driving home that night, I furiously replayed the day in my mind, rattling off all the things I’d wanted to say to those disgusting males. Then I heard a siren and looked over my shoulder, and channeled the colorful sergeant who’d driven me through Verdun.
“Goddamn son of a bitch of a ball biter!” For a policeman on a motorcycle was signaling for me to pull over. Still cursing, I did. Then I rolled my window down.
“Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”
“No, officer, I don’t.” I decided not to protest or even pretend my innocence; I knew I’d been going fast. Now, I just wanted to go home.
“Of course you don’t,” the policeman mimicked me. “I am so sick of rattlebrained woman drivers. Now that you have the vote, you broads all think you can drive, too.”
I gripped the steering wheel, took a calming breath. “These rattlebrains make me over fifty thousand dollars a year, I’ll have you know.” Reaching into my pocketbook, I took out a wad of bills to pay the ticket, practically throwing them at the man.
Then I roared off. To the understanding arms of Fred. And our mansion on the hill.
—
We christened it The Enchanted Hill, and years later, in my dreams that were more hazy bits of memories than actual reveries, this was the house to which I would return, again and again.
To a two-story white stucco mansion with twenty rooms, wide arches, and a red-tiled roof in the Spanish style, designed by Wallace Neff—the same architect who had designed Pickfair. To the long drive bordered with fruit trees and climbing roses that ended at an enormous tiled fountain in the courtyard. To the bougainvillea-clad walls and palm trees and pots of jasmine. To the coat of arms that Fred and I playfully designed to include a movie camera, a horse head, a horseshoe, and a piece of paper and quill pen.
To the massive drawing room, towering beams, floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows. The swimming pool, the gardens. An Aeolian pipe organ I, summoning my childhood piano training, attempted to play with more enthusiasm than skill. The master bedroom with the ten-foot-tall shower in the bath designed for my strapping husband. Fireplaces everywhere—I was firmly of the belief that no house could have too many fireplaces—as were antiques, tapestries, maids’ rooms.
Down the hill was a stable for Fred’s horse, Silver King, a handsome, tall animal he had trained for the movies. Fred was determined to be a role model for young boys and had decided that cowboy movies were the way to go—especially because in cowboy films, there were no love scenes, only a hasty embrace of the heroine at the end while they walked off into the sunset. And after the success of The Covered Wagon in 1923, studios were eager to invest in them. By the time our house was finished in 1924, my Fred was the number-two cowboy star in the world behind Tom Mix; he costarred in serials with Silver King, who had his own heated house separate from the rest of the stables and round-the-clock grooms to meet his every need.
“That horse eats better than I do,” I teased. But I didn’t mind; I had nothing to mind, those days.
Those days when the money was pouring in, earned by us both, as fast as we could spend it and goodness, did we try! Everyone in
Hollywood, all our old friends who used to pool our nickels to share a bowl of spaghetti and a pint of beer—we were all building grand mansions, stables, pools, most of them in these very Beverly Hills. Harold and Mildred Lloyd were our neighbors. So was John Gilbert. And a young newcomer to Hollywood named Rudolph Valentino.
Everyone had gone Hollywood! Now that we knew the industry we had invented wasn’t going to vanish, we were all putting down roots, spending money we’d never before been able to even imagine—and some didn’t have the schooling to be able to count it all, but that was what managers and business advisors were for. The sons of chauffeurs now employed chauffeurs. The daughters of maids now had twenty maids of their own. European vacations were de rigueur.
Parties! Everyone threw parties! So did the Thomsons; we invited all our friends, new and old, to come to The Enchanted Hill and kick back, let their hair down; ours were not the stuffy evenings at Pickfair. No one had to wear a tiara; tuxes were banned at the door. Sometimes we all packed into cars and went to the prize fights; boxing was the new fad in Hollywood and Fred’s friend Gene Tunney, whom he’d met planning the Allied Games, was the world’s champion.
Other times, we girls laughingly shooed the boys off to go to the fights by themselves and settled in for what the press soon began to call “Cats’ Parties.” I made everyone bring their pajamas, and we scrubbed off our makeup and let our hair down, then trooped down to the basement screening room to watch not the newest release—the usual Hollywood custom—but our old movies instead. It was astonishing how difficult those old movies of the 1910s were to find now! We’d never imagined that what we were making would have any permanence or worth, so those old one- and two-reelers were hidden away in forgotten storerooms, piled in boxes, not even protected from the light.