(United Artists founders Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith in 1919)
A century ago this year, four of Hollywood’s most legendary artists — Charles Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks — formed what remains one of the most legendary brands of tinseltown’s many storied studios: United Artists. While the company itself has undergone predictable periods of tumult and success, much like the other studios, the mere fact that it was founded by artists and for artists continues to set it apart. From Wuthering Heights to High Noon to West Side Story to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the legendary James Bond and Rocky franchises, United Artists’ footprint on the entertainment industry remains indelible and indispensable.
It is therefore fitting that this be a year not simply to rediscover and acknowledge that legacy but to revisit the personalities that made it possible. As the original celebrity “power couple,” Pickford and Fairbanks paved the way for countless others who would follow — celebrities who channeled their individual success and joint notoriety into creative power.
This coming Sunday, February 10, 2019, at 2pm at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in Hollywood, publisher Rowan & Littlefield’s new edition of their classic “Douglas Fairbanks: The Fourth Musketeer” will be officially launched, giving a new generation an invaluable opportunity to step back in time and discover how movie stars and moguls were made in an era before digital effects and global entertainment conglomerates. As the original action hero and swashbuckler in such films as The Mark of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Fairbanks set a bar for which even present-day action stars continue to strive.
The new edition will also be featured at the upcoming 10th Toronto Silent Film Festival on April 7 along with a screening of of Fairbanks’ 1919 film, When the Clouds Roll By, one of United Artists earliest successes.
Co-written by Douglas Fairbanks’ niece, Letitia Fairbanks, “Douglas Fairbanks: The Fourth Musketeer” is a wonderful piece of both history and personal family memorabilia, freshly updated with all-new, rarely-seen photographs and more. One of the most ardent defenders of the Fairbanks legacy is Letitia’s step-daughter Kelley Smoot, who was kind enough to answer some questions and give us her thoughts on where the movie business has come — and where it’s going.
Q: Talk about how you were introduced to the legacy of Douglas Fairbanks through your stepmom, Letitia.
I first met Letitia Fairbanks when I was four years old, following my parent’s divorce, during summer visitation with my father in Los Angeles. My father, Harold “Hal” Smoot had re-connected with his old family friend, Letitia, and they were dating, prior to what would turn into their marriage in San Francisco on Nov 25, 1966.
Both my father and Letitia’s families had roots in pioneering Utah and the Mormon Church. A listing of the first class at Brigham Young Academy (now University) included my great-grandfather, Reed Smoot, and Letitia’s grand-aunt, Sarah Eggertsen, and grandfather, S.P. Eggertsen, through her mother, Lorie Eggertsen Fairbanks.
Letitia recognized early in my life that I had an interest in history, so she made sure that I knew of the Smoot family’s role in Utah’s development. While neither Letitia nor my dad were practicing Mormons, both had been raised within the Church’s precepts, while also being exposed to cosmopolitan areas of Hollywood (Letitia) and Washington, DC (my father).
One of the things that made Letitia such a great stepmom was her ability to foster art projects based on my interests. So during a visit in the 1970s, when I became interested in a box of old photographs of Smoot relatives, Letitia showed me how to assemble them into a leather-bound photo album made of fibrous paper, inking the name of each ancestor in Old English calligraphy, hand-lettering being another teenage passion of mine.
For years, I thought this was what Mormon families did: assemble photos in albums to honor their ancestors. It was a shock to discover, when I went to a large Smoot family reunion in Provo in 2015, that my photo album was a unique creation. It was only when I found Douglas Fairbanks’ two over-sized books at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy, along with the amazing volume of condolence telegrams, cards, and letters that Douglas, Jr. received upon his father’s death, that I realized Letitia had imparted to me the Fairbanks family tradition of honoring a story with an epic-sized tome filled with elaborate calligraphy, drawings, paintings, and photos.
Another reason I think Letitia made such a great stepmom is because she was trained by the best. She grew up watching her aunt, Mary Pickford, be a stepmother to Douglas, Jr. Doug, Jr always credited Mary with being a positive influence on his father. He retained a lifelong friendship with his stepmother Mary, long after she and his father was divorced, and indeed long after his father’s death in 1939. So Letitia was “bred to the bone” to be a stepmother, I believe.
Q: What makes Fairbanks’ legacy so unique and what do you think today’s audiences and movie fans can learn from him?
As Eileen Whitfield writes in her Foreword to this new edition of “The Fourth Musketeer,” “The world was [Douglas’] oyster and his personal gym, and he couldn’t be beaten as a problem solver.” These qualities are in short supply in today’s world. We don’t have role models who successfully solve their problems on a routine basis and do it with “pep, vim, and vigor!” While there’s lots about the 1910s and 1920s that we shouldn’t return to, there’s a lot we can learn from any epoch’s positive side. That’s what Doug Fairbanks always represented, long before Norman Vincent Peale – the power of being positive and positive thinking.
Fairbanks’ legacy is unique, in a large part because he was either The First, or among The First, in so many ways:
— The First “King” of Hollywood. He and his wife, Mary Pickford (the “Queen”) were The First movie power couple, with an accompanying mansion (very modest by today’s standards). Their home was also given The First mash-up of a star couple’s names: Pickfair.
— The First, together with his wife, Mary Pickford, to ceremonially put his hand and foot prints into Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre’s forecourt. This tradition is often repeated around the world every time a sack of concrete is poured in a backyard patio.
— The First President (in 1927) of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Fairbanks joined with 36 others, including Mary Pickford, to organize and form the professional organization.
— The First “superhero.” The creators of Superman and Batman have both acknowledged that their characters are directly linked to Fairbanks and were inspired his swashbuckling movies.
— The First to use two-tone Technicolor in a feature-length motion picture, 1926’s The Black Pirate.
— Fairbanks, along with his wife Mary Pickford, impresario Sid Grauman and movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, was among The First movie stars to build a hotel – the Roosevelt – in Los Angeles.
— With his wife Mary Pickford and impresario Sid Grauman, Fairbanks built the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. There, he and Grauman were among The First to augment and expand the concept of “red carpet” gala opening nights with the debut of his Robin Hood (1922). Fairbanks continued this tradition at the larger, grander Chinese Theatre in 1927.
— Last but not least, along with his soon-to-be wife Mary Pickford, pal Charlie Chaplin, and director DW Griffith, Fairbanks founded United Artists in 1919, being The First corporation to distribute the work of independent producers.
Q: Douglas Fairbanks, along with Chaplin, Keaton, Pickford and other silent greats, really established the “movie star”concept. That was something that hadn’t existed before, and it’s starting to feel a bit anachronistic. Just the fact that Fairbanks did his own stunts now seems almost incomprehensible in the age of digital effects. Some say movie stars are now dead – that it’s all about brands and franchises. Do you agree? And if so, what have we lost that they had then and how can we get it back?
Douglas Fairbanks’ personality and athleticism were made for the screen; from “The Fourth Musketeer”:
“Most of his famous stunts were simply feats of athletic precision. There was no great element of danger in them. They took infinite skill, training, practice, but they either could be done or they couldn’t. They were what one should call legitimate stunts, and required the skill of a great athlete and not the peculiar daring of the professional stunt man. A leap from a galloping horse to a speeding train, typical of his early feats, did not give his audience a sense of danger so much as a feeling of confidence in the perfection of his work.”
Audiences of Doug Fairbanks’ time (1915-1934) went to see a hero who could accomplish his goals using poetry in motion, not take daredevil risks. While there was always a thrill associated with going to a Fairbanks movie and watching Doug’s feats of athletic adventurism, there was always certainty in Doug’s consummate capabilities. As silent film historian Fritzi Kramer of “Movies, Silently” says, “Douglas Fairbanks could do more with swords and a low table than most people today can do with a budget of $200 million.”
In today’s world, it’s all assumed to be fake, because it usually is fake. In modern films, especially films in the action hero genre, we are watching a visual concoction that is made up and not at all real. When it all is unreal, where is the value in that actor’s role?
There was nothing fake about Douglas Fairbanks – he was the real deal. Douglas was as much of an acrobat in real life as he was in his films. From architect William Sofield in “The Fourth Musketeer,” on restoring Letitia’s childhood home where Douglas often visited:
“… Douglas himself doing acrobatic stunts from the sleeping porch to the great delight of neighborhood children. The place was beloved.”
Can you imagine what would happen today if a movie star showed up and did acrobatic stunts off a neighbor’s porch? The fact that a movie star cannot show up at a house and do impromptu acrobatic stunts (without causing LAPD interminable headaches and bother to everyone else) is what’s missing in Los Angeles today. Bring back that spirit, and another Douglas Fairbanks might be found.
Q: Douglas Fairbanks was at the center of such a dramatic moment in the movies — not only was he one of the first movie stars, but he and Mary Pickford became the first movie star couple. Then he co-founded United Artists in direct response to attempts by the studios to undermine the star power of its founders. And yet, as we read in the book — he still remained accessible to friends and family. What kept him so grounded?
Again, the times were so different then. In Douglas’ day, there was not such a gulf separating the wealthy from the poor. While Pickfair was considered an elegant and magnificent home, and indeed had amenities that some would find palatial even today, it lacked central heating and was known to be drafty and cold in winter. Back then, weather was a much greater equalizer than it is today.
Also, families were more tightly-knit and worked together and more cooperatively than in today’s business world (in any profession). Douglas employed his brothers Robert and John as his trusted aides. Robert, as an engineer, handled set design & production direction; John, an accountant, handled the finances. Fairbanks often admitted he owed much of his success to his family and the talented people he hired.
Q: Obviously there have been stars who attempted to emulate or model themselves on Douglas Fairbanks over the years — Errol Flynn, Jackie Chan among the most famous. Is there anyone today whom you would deem a star in the Fairbanks mold?
To preface my response, I am no film scholar, or even much of an expert, so these are my personal biases, based on a somewhat random, fairly limited movie-watching life, and certainly not the opinions of the Fairbanks family, or anyone else.
I find it hard to find modern actors that are a star in the Fairbanks mold, because modern actors are not naturally acrobatic, as Fairbanks so superbly was. It’s easier to find his essence in modern directors and producers.
Steven Spielberg is a moviemaker who has many of Fairbanks’ traits: high-quality productions, well-crafted stories and first-rate scripts. He has created many successful movies and multiple franchises over a long career. Also, Spielberg’s choice of subject matter closely matches Fairbanks’. Most Spielberg movies contain some positive aspect and a faith in the redeeming value of humanity, even in the bleakest of circumstances. There’s an element of redemption in most of his stories, if not an outright, feel-good ending.
Martin Scorsese should also be included in this list, as should Oprah Winfrey. Like Fairbanks, they create consistently excellent entertainment. Plus Oprah often acts in her own productions, giving her the same well-rounded qualities as an entertainment star that Douglas had. Scorsese, and to a lesser degree Spielberg, have also been known to act in their productions, but acting wasn’t their original focus, as it was with Douglas and Oprah.
By mentioning Oprah, I want to point out that if people want to see a more gender and racially diverse Hollywood, then the men are going to have to be more like Douglas Fairbanks, who always gave credit to Mary Pickford and the women and men of all races and ages that worked for him.
Just as the Industrial Revolution has given way to our modern world, this era may become known as the Corporatist Age, where activities and production are created by corporations, not by individuals. That’s a less-democratic tendency that Fairbanks would have resisted.
Q: When Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin and Griffith founded United Artists a century ago, it was hailed as a new dawn for artistic control by artists — a dream that unfortunately sputtered some years later. The same fate unfortunately befell our latter-day United Artists, DreamWorks. Do you believe the dream of United Artists is an impossible dream? Or can it make a comeback?
Again, I am no industry expert. It can be difficult for an endeavor that involves large egos with competing interests to hold together for any length of time. Ask any musician who’s participated in any type of collective music-making. The fact that Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin & Griffith created and held United Artists together for a productive 10+ years while creating world-class films that still endure today is an amazing achievement.
That Katzenberg, Spielberg and Geffen tried it through DreamWorks and succeeded again and again with the production of iconic films is equally important and impressive. Can it happen again? Perhaps, if the men in charge allow cooperation and nurturing, two traits commonly considered feminine, to be more readily expressed in the workplace. Fairbanks’ alliance with Pickford, and indeed United Artists when at its best, was a model of this understanding.
Q: It’s a pivotal moment for classic films — the demise of Fandor and FilmStruck followed by the announcement of new services like the Criterion Channel, OVID.tv and Film Movement + — it’s as if there’s a battle going on in the culture between those who want to erase our film heritage and those who are determined to preserve it. What do you say to those who don’t yet understand the importance of preserving, watching and enjoying classic films, especially from the silent era?
I recently heard a TEDx talk given by Oxford philosopher Theodore Zeldin, who studies questions such as “How can we make our lives more meaningful?” He said that scientific research shows that the quality of the future we create depends on the richness of our memories. In other words, the extent of your memories determines how much you can imagine about the future. Movies are a perfect way to increase our collective store of memories, to create the best, most mindful, shared future.
The problem with the ‘Balkanization’ of the back catalogs of old movies is these back catalogs are a finite set. As an example, the movies on TCM have been seen so many times, it’s rare anything new comes on.
The only way ‘new’ old movies get restored, and might eventually be broadcast, is when a studio or a group advocates for them. That can help demonstrate that there is commercial value in older films. But many films don’t make this narrow cut and what is being lost is immeasurable. We are erasing and sanitizing our collective memory. Unfortunately, it’s the nature of power to preserve what looks like power. This means that gender and racial bias is heightened and made much worse through this Balkanization.
This is why a new twist on the United Artists concept is needed. By this I mean the creation of an artists’ cooperative that provides distribution to modern independent media producers and also helps to preserve silent & classic cinema. Unlike iTunes or other large digital platforms, the majority of the income from these co-ops must be returned to the creator or restorer so that the artists receive a livable wage while securing funding for future creative efforts, as was Doug, Mary, Charlie & DW’s original intent.
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