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Taylorology Issue 51
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 51 -- March 1997 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Charlie Chaplin Interview from 1916
Anita Loos
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
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Charlie Chaplin Interview from 1916
Because of Chaplin's universal and continuing appeal, the past issues of
TAYLOROLOGY (36, 37, 46) which contained Chaplin material were very well
received and we received requests for more Chaplin items. So here is another
Chaplin interview:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 19, 1916
Miriam Teichner
NEW YORK GLOBE
Charlie Chaplin A Tragedian Would Be
Movie Comedian Has Had This Ambition Since Childhood--
David Warfield His Ideal
Wants To Make People Cry
For Amusement Plays the Violin and Walks the Streets Observing Small Boys
"Well," parried the hotel clerk, "do you think you'd know him if you
saw him?"
He smiled as he said it, and a bell hop and a maid standing at the desk
tittered joyously.
I said I was pretty sure I'd know him if I saw him, and the hotel
clerk, echoed by the maid and the bell hop like a comic opera chorus, said,
"Well, he's right here in the lobby." Then they watched me.
I looked and didn't see him. There were several groups of people in
the lobby, commonplace, typical hotel-lobby groups, and that was all. So I
gave the hotel clerk my card. There ensued a scuffle between the bell hop
and the maid as to which was to have the task of carrying the card to him.
The maid won out and she made her way to one of the groups and handed the
card to a young man.
Then there was a flashing smile--the smiliest smile that I every saw--
and I knew him.
Charlie Chaplin off the films is a charming young man. He was talking
to two guests when he received my card, so I had a few moments to watch him
before it was time for the interview. His smile is the thing about him which
commands attention. If there could be such a thing as a smile with a man
instead of a man with a smile, Charlie Chaplin's smile is it. One sees the
smile before one sees Chaplin.
And this is not because it is merely a conspicuous smile. It is a
smile that is compounded largely of sweetness, with, of course, a large dash
of humor thrown in. You discover after a time that the smile is surrounded by
young man; that there are a pair of very good gray-blue eyes under a high
forehead, with slightly curly dark brown hair swept aside from the brow; that
there is a large, well-shaped nose, and all the other appurtenances that go
to make up a human face. But the smile is, undoubtedly the thing.
For the rest, he is rather below medium height, and slender, with hands
which, even on a woman, would be unusually small. And those feet, those
fortunate feet which have paddled their way into the hearts of millions of
movie fans--they're just regular feet, and they don't walk a bit differently
from the feet of anyone else.
Now he's ready to talk. He's a little bit shy, when interviewed, and
the newspaper people are among the reasons he has for traveling like royalty.
He has a soft, pleasant voice, with a strong English accent, and while he
talks that really remarkable smile is flashing off and on, winning your heart-
-if he hasn't won it already. The smile is aided and abetted in its work by
two side partners in the way of eyes--blue eyes, with a twinkle and a
crinkle. There are little humor lines raying out from the corners of the
eyes, and, once you come to study the matter, you find that really the eyes
smile as much as the mouth.
Charlie Chaplin is twenty-six, almost twenty-seven. He began to act
when he was a child, having come from a family of actor-folk. "And in those
days," he relates, "I was very short, and--inclined to be--well, chubby, you
know. I wanted to play tragedy. That was always the ambition of my early
life. And my brother Sydney used to laugh at me, and say: "Ho, you're goin'
to be a fat little funny comedian.' And I used to cry (he screwed up his
face here, to show just how) and say: 'No, I'm not. I'm goin' to be a
tragedian.'"
He isn't a tragedian yet--but he still has ambitions. Not for real
tragedy, but for something half-way-in-between the sort of comedy he plays
now and the real deep-down, shivery-music heart-throbs kind. David Warfield
is his ideal as an actor, and he wants to do the work that Warfield does--
"make people cry a little, as well as laugh," he puts it.
One would rather guess, looking at him, that he wanted to do something
besides comedy all the rest of his life. It's a sensitive sort of artist-
face that he has, and one isn't surprised to hear that he plays the violin
for amusement when he is alone.
He explained all about that little mustache and those long, turned-up
shoes of his after a while. "You see," he related, "I haven't a comedy face.
I had been playing the part of a drunken man in a vaudeville skit when I got
an offer from the Keystone people, and I realized the handicap of not having
a comedy face right away. I had the feet and the walk. That walk came all
the way from England. My old uncle used to keep a public house, and there
was one of those old habitual drunkards that used to lean up against the wall
for hours at a time waiting for a chance to beg or earn a few cents. When a
rig drove up to the door he'd hobble out to hold the horses, and he'd be in
such a hurry with his poor old sore feet, in their broken old shoes, that he
walked just about the way I walk in the movies.
"But I had to study for a long time to find out what I could do with my
face. Painting wouldn't fix it, so I tried the mustache. Then I found that
if it were a big mustache it hid the lines of my face on which I depend for a
good deal of the expression"--those are the lines running from nostrils to
the corner of the mouth--"so I kept cutting it down, smaller and smaller
until it became the funny little thing that it is today."
Charlie Chaplin says he has never laughed at himself on the screen. To
the chortling, gurgling, sore-and-shaking fans who have gasped at the antics
of this boy and his little black mustache and his cane, and his retrousse
shoes, this will seem impossible, but it's true.
"I usually go to see myself the first night of a new performance," he
admits, "but I don't laugh. No, I just go to see whether or not the film is
taking, and what I've done that I shouldn't do. And if it's a success, I'm
happy. There's something that makes you feel pretty good in knowing that all
over the world people are laughing at what you're doing. But if it isn't a
success--then it's terrible--to feel that you're a failure all over the world
at the same time."
Charlie Chaplin gets a lot of his fun walking on the streets and
observing small boys, and eluding as a general thing, discovery. But once in
a while he's found out and then there is a trail of adoring youngsters
following him. He likes the boys and girls, he says. "I play very largely
to them," he admits. "Whenever I have studied out some bit of humor that I
particularly like, and then go to a movie to watch its effect, it's
invariably a small boy or girl that laughs first. They get it every time."
"Are you married?" I asked Charlie Chaplin suddenly, after we had
talked of commonplace things like ambitions and shuffling feet (by the way,
Charlie Chaplin denies positively that he borrowed his walk from a penguin)
and $100,000 a year incomes, for quite some time.
For a moment he looked startled. It was leap year, you know, and
Charlie Chaplin is a most attractive young man, with some slight claim to
fame, and enough money to buy a whole new set of uniforms for the allies if
he so desired. Then he said:
"No, but I'm going to be some day." He wouldn't say to whom, nor what
the lady is like. All he did say, with a far-away look in the eyes that
aren't quite the eyes of a comedian, was: "Well--I have hopes."
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Anita Loos
During the years that Taylor was in Hollywood, no screenwriter was more
highly regarded by the industry and by the public than Anita Loos. Her witty
screenplays and subtitles raised the silent film to a higher level, and she
measurably boosted the careers of Douglas Fairbanks and Constance Talmadge,
among others. She never worked with Taylor. The following items cover the
portion of her career while Taylor was active in the silent film industry.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 27, 1913
MOTION PICTURE NEWS
Frank E. Woods, scenario editor for the Mutual, says the best and most
prolific script artist is Miss Anita Loos, the eighteen-year-old daughter of
a San Diego, Cal., publisher.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 11, 1914
MOVING PICTURE WORLD
Anita Loos, of San Diego, Calif., eighteen years old and the youngest
successful photoplaywright in America, author of "The Fatal Dress Suit,"
"Nearly a Burglar's Bride," and many other Mutual Movie farce comedies, was a
recent visitor at the producing studio at Los Angeles, Cal, and witnessed the
production of a motion picture from a scenario she had written. Edward
Dillon was the producer.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
November 4, 1916
MOVING PICTURE WORLD
Director John Emerson, loaned by Triangle to the Famous Players for the
past two months, has been recalled, and has departed for the Triangle-Fine
Arts studios at Hollywood, Cal. The reason for the haste in the departure of
Director Emerson lies in a telegram received by Harry E. Aitken, President of
Triangle, from Douglas Fairbanks, the same day the ebullient and athletic
star hopped off the train at Hollywood. In his wire Fairbanks announced that
he was on the ground and ready to start on his next picture, but that he
craved two boons--first, that John Emerson act as his director; second, that
Anita Loos, busy scenaroist of Triangle-Fine Arts, write the titles for his
plays.
Miss Loos, it happened, had just left for the coast after a brief
vacation in New York, and is read for her assignment...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 2, 1916
MOVING PICTURE WORLD
Anita Loos of the Triangle-Fine Arts scenario department, will
henceforth write the sub-titles for all screen plays in which Douglas
Fairbanks is starred. This arrangement has been made at the special request
of Fairbanks himself, who is convinced that the drawing power of the features
in which he appears can be greatly affected, favorably or otherwise, by the
amount of ingenuity or commonplaceness evinced by the writer of the captions.
"Time and again," says Fairbanks, "I have sat through plays by Miss Loos
and have heard the audience applaud her sub-titles as heartily as the
liveliest scenes. There have even been cases I could mention where her
comments out-shone the scenes themselves. This has convinced me of the great
value of the kind of work she does."
Miss Loos has written more than fifty successful starring vehicles,
among which the Fine Arts productions "The Social Secretary," "Stranded,"
"His Picture in the Papers," "American Aristocracy," and a forthcoming
release, "The Wharf Rat," would reflect credit on any writer.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 1917
Karl Schmidt
EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE
The Handwriting on the Screen
There are those who contend that the ideal screenplay will be acted from
beginning to end without a single subtitle of comment or explanation.
Douglas Fairbanks thinks differently. No sooner had he disposed of his
court troubles--a suit for violation of contract--than he engaged at once an
expert subtitle writer, Anita Loos, to do the scenarios for the pictures he
is to bring out himself.
...Miss Loos took up subtitle writing largely because it was found that
her scenarios when filmed or "shot," as the movie phrase has it, had lost
much of their originality. It was generally agreed that her scripts were
better than the pictures they made. The scenario might seem to be unusual;
the picture had less point. Bit by bit, parts of the scenarios found their
way on to the screen as subtitles, and thus an incidental part of Miss Loos'
work began to dominate.
During the run of a famous pantomime, backstage was said to have been
made lively in the intermissions by the professional bickerings of performers
whose work deprived them of speech. It was as if the actors needed this
outlet for curbed tongues.
Nor does the enforced silence of the screen make marionettes of the
players who face the camera. Through their press-agents they not only talk
much but often in a new language. Most persons know something of this lingo
of the studios; many are familiar with the ghastly close-up and know that the
director is a czar-like stage manager who can crush or create careers at
will. Only to the initiated is it given to know continuity, locations, cut-
ins, dissolves, fade-outs, iris in, titles, and subtitles.
The subtitle has only been in vogue a few years. It differs from the
title--the wording between scenes which describes the action of the picture
that is to come--in that it need not attend to business. It is meant only
for the audience, and though at times in the supposed speech of the
characters in the film, it may be a mere comment outside the picture and
addressed to the audience like the aside of our fathers' theatre.
Titles and subtitles get the undivided attention of the audience. Often
in the spoken drama a humorous line is lost because of the distraction of
many things. No one may miss lines on the screen.
In "The Birth of a Nation," and in "Intolerance," most of the trouble
was caused by subtitles. A single one in the latter film--a paraphrase by
Anita Loos of a quotation from Voltaire--caused a protest from the club women
of Los Angeles and aroused Pennsylvania's easily agitated censors.
Anita Loos has not only written subtitles for Griffith's pictures, but
she has written many for Douglas Fairbanks' triumphant crusades against
villainy.
"My most popular subtitle introduced the name of a new character,"
confessed Miss Loos "The name was something like this: 'Count Xxerkzsxxv.'
Then there was a note, 'To those of you who read titles aloud, you can't
pronounce the Count's name. You can only think it.'"
Thus it will be seen how little the subtitle need fit into the story. A
subtitle writer wields an editorial influence, and like writing for the press
this part of writing on the screen is especially ephemeral.
In the course of a Fairbanks film, "Doug," as all the world knows him,
quells a score or more of rioting workmen by telling them a funny story.
This gave Miss Loos her opportunity to write in moving letters: "We'd like
to let you in on this, but it takes 'Doug' himself to put it over."
In the lore of the theatres there is a tale that "Officer 666," which
went lamely in rehearsals when played as a melodrama, scored a success on the
first night, because the actors changed the play to a farce. According to
Miss Loos this is not infrequently done in the movies. "Often a script
intended for drama has become comic by the invention of subtitles that
'kidded' the story."
Miss Loos has not only written subtitles. She has written many
scenarios. In fact, her introduction to the movies was through a scenario
sent East when she was still a schoolgirl. Though it does not cover many
years, the career of Anita Loos is full of surprises.
"I began to write early," she confided, "and I think I have one
distinction: The first things I wrote were for a New York newspaper column
called 'All Round Manhattan,' or something of the sort. I wonder would the
editor have taken my work had he known I hadn't been out of California, and
wasn't destined to see New York until years later?
"I have always had a lot of first luck. I sold my first writing, my
first vaudeville sketch, my first scenario; just now I sold my first short
story. Griffith put on my first scenario, 'The New York Hat,' with Mary
Pickford and Lionel Barrymore.
"I suppose I wrote two hundred scenarios before I saw the inside of a
studio, and until I went to see Griffith at the Triangle Studios on the Coast
I was just an outside contributor. Griffith knew my name, but when I entered
he almost fell off the Christmas tree. I had my hair down my back and was
dressed like the rube-child I was.
"That was the beginning of my work on the inside. Since I have known
something of the technical work I have been more than ever convinced of the
great possibilities of the movies. They have a wonderful future. Now they
deal with trivialities. They will outgrow that--then I guess I'll ease out.
"Now I am never bored, but I would be if the movies hadn't come along.
I lived in a small California town. I couldn't get away, though I threatened
my parents with a runaway marriage as a means of seeing the world.
"I had read every book in the town library. When I had read all the
English books I learned French and German, so as to read the few foreign
books that the library contained. It's no credit to me if I am well-read.
My reading has helped me in my writing, though I read not for information nor
for amusement, but as Flaubert counsels in one of his letters, 'I read to
live.'"
That a subtitle and scenario writer who has grown up with the movies
should know Voltaire and Flaubert is surprising; but then Miss Loos is not
the conventional moving-picture subject for an interview.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 1917
Julian Johnson
PHOTOPLAY
...Miss Loos' philosophy of life is the one thing proving her sex. It's
illogical and incompatible with her accomplishments. She believes that man
is the little Kaiser of creation, and, despising suffrage, avers that
domesticity is the only plane of female existence; that a woman's first duty
is to be lovable, her second to be loved, and that when she has made herself
unlovely and unlovable she should be dead.
...Once upon a time D. W. Griffith and I were carrying on a rapid-fire
conversation. Miss Loos' name crept into the talk. As he heard it he
paused. Then he said:
"The most brilliant young woman in the world."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 1918
Lillian Montanye
MOTION PICTURE
The Play's the Thing!
"Anita Loos and John Emerson have come out of the West," I announced,
"and they are not writing or directing plays for Douglas Fairbanks any more.
Now what ARE they going to do and what are they doing in New York?"
"Go and find out," said the Editor, sternly, so I meekly ventured forth.
In my mind's eye was a picture of Anita Loos, the clever writer of
titles and author of innumerable scripts. She would be "high-brow," of
course, and very, very serious. She would converse learnedly of art, ideals,
inspiration and atmosphere. Would I be able to grasp it?
And as for the wonderful John Emerson, who is a big figure in the screen
world today, just as a few years ago he was a commanding figure in the stage
world, my imagination stopped working when I thought of him.
Two of them! It was almost too much!
Then came the appointment--an invitation to lunch with them; and without
daring to think or plan, I found myself ringing the bell of Miss Loos' suite
of rooms at the Hotel San Rafael. The door opened briskly, there was a
cheery "Come in," and I was shaking the hand of a bright-faced wisp of a girl
with great dark eyes that hat evidently kept on growing after she had
stopped.
"You are not Miss Loos?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, I am," she said, emphatically. "What's the matter? Did no one
tell you how 'onery' I am? Did you think I was a tall, stately lady?"
"No," I said, "but I did think that perhaps you were grown up."
"She's not 'high-brow' nor serious, and she's not going to converse
learnedly," I thought, relievedly. But "onery"--no, I shouldn't say that.
"Sit down until John comes: he is going to take us out," she said with a
bright friendliness that put me at ease at once and made me resolve not to
lose a moment as there was no way of knowing what might happen when "John"
appeared.
"How did you begin your scenario writing, Miss Loos?" I began. "And
what made you think you could do it?"
"Well, I was brought up on the stage. My father was a writer as well as
an actor and producer, so I had exceptional training. Even when very young,
a mere child, I took my work on the stage very seriously, making the most of
every part, no matter how small. I studied technique until I had absorbed
it, as one might say. That's where so many people make a mistake. They may
have wonderful ideas and all that, but to write photoplays without some
knowledge of construction and technique is like an engineer trying to run a
train without an engine. It simply can't be done.
"Indeed I do remember the first scenario I wrote, because I sold it to
Mr. Griffith. Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore played the leads. At that
time I was in Los Angeles, and I wrote plays for two years before I had seen
the inside of a studio. I'm not saying that I sold them all, but selling the
first one encouraged me to continue, for I reasoned that what had been done
could be done again. I was with Mr. Griffith five years, then the turning
point in my career came, and I began working with Mr. Emerson."
There was a quick ring at the door, and at the psychological moment
entered John Emerson.
"What is he like?"
Picture, if you can, a well-set-up personage with a manner direct but so
pleasing that it seems to take one straight into his confidence; a pair of
piercing, dark eyes, in which there lurks a rare sense of humor--just a big,
compelling bunch of personality. That's John Emerson.
"Where will we eat?" he began, man-fashion. As he piloted us 'cross
town, I remarked on the late unpleasantness of the below-zero weather, the
coal famine, etc.
"How you must have regretted sunny California!" I said.
"Indeed we did not!" (chorus)
"I prefer New York, even though it were a perpetual, howling blizzard.
No more sunny California for me," said Mr. Emerson.
"Then you are in New York permanently?" I queried as we seated ourselves
in a cozy corner of the Hotel Claridge dining room.
"Yes, our plans are all made, and we expect to be here permanently and
to continue our work together."
"You see, it's this way about working together," said Miss Loos. "One
person can't successfully write a play any more than one person can act it.
When I began my play-writing, I had the best of training, and I had ideas,
and suppose I was unusually successful. My plays were called good in the
reading, but they didn't get over in a big way when they were screened."
"Yes," interposed John Emerson, "and I was looking for plays--fairly
desperate because I could find nothing that suited me. I saw some of Miss
Loos' work and said, "There's the thing I want."
"And," interrupted Miss Loos, "you were told, 'Nothing to it,
absolutely,'"
"Very true," admitted Mr. Emerson, "but when we got together and began
putting our ideas together and working them out, we each supplied what the
other lacked. And there your are! You must admit," he continued, "that Miss
Loos is a wonder at titles. She is rather young to be called a mother," he
said, looking across the table at his small collaborator, "but I call her the
mother of comedy titles."
"The titles are almost the whole thing, are they not?" I asked.
"No," said Miss Loos, quickly. "The titles are to the screen play what
the spoken word is to the stage play, but either one must have action and
sustained interest to put it over. Of course, in comedy-dramas, the titles
are very important."
"About our future plans," said Mr. Emerson. "We expect to provide a
series of photoplay dramas for release by Paramount, known as the John
Emerson and Anita Loos Productions.
"These plays will carry out the idea, 'The play's the thing.' The play
will be the feature. We will choose a god cast, but there will be no stars
at enormous salaries. Too much money is spent on stars and too little on the
production of the picture. So many of the plays written for the big stars
don't suit them. Too many managers and directors think and say, 'It doesn't
matter so much about the play; he or she will get it over.' That's a
mistake. Intelligent people don't care so much about the star--it's the play
itself they care about."
"It's a step in the right direction," I admitted.
"We think so," agreed Mr. Emerson, "and we are glad of the chance to try
it out, backed by an organization that will give the proper artistic
attention to the needs of our productions. Our plays will not be stage plays
or novels adapted to the screen, but strictly individual, high-class
satirical comedy. And now we shall do our best to demonstrate, 'The play's
the thing.'"
"Miss Loos," I said, "how do you get the ideas for your comedies?"
"I hardly know," she smiled. "But I get them from life--little things I
see and hear. Ideas come to me most unexpectedly sometimes. One of the best
'rube' plays I ever did was from an idea that came to me right in New York.
The other night we were at the theater and I found an idea. Not from the
play on the stage, but from people in the audience."
"Ideas are everywhere. I shouldn't be surprised if Miss Loos had found
one right in this dining-room while we have been talking," ventured Mr.
Emerson.
"Didn't you regret leaving Mr. Fairbanks?" I wanted to know.
"Certainly," said Miss Loos. "One always dislikes giving up
associations that are pleasant. But Mr. Fairbanks decided to get away from
satirical comedies and try a new type of play. We do our best work in
satirical comedies. That's our specialty, so naturally we ventured forth to
pastures new."
"Now, look here, Anita," said John Emerson, "of course we liked Mr.
Fairbanks and regretted leaving him, but the real reason, speaking for
myself, was that I wanted to get away from California. I never felt well
there. I was never myself. 'Perpetual sunshine' sounds very poetical, but
it isn't--it's too hot to be poetical. It gets on your nerves and gets you
eyes 'on the blink,' and you long for just a few hours of gloom. It fades
your clothes, your good disposition, your energy and ambition--even your
morals."
"And it's so dusty you have to change your clothes three times a day,
and then you're never clean," put in Miss Loos, eager to do her bit.
"There really are beautiful roads, and you get in your car and think now
surely this lovely road must go somewhere--but it doesn't," interrupted John
the Emancipated. "It's like Raymond Hitchcock's song, 'All dressed up and
nowhere to go.'"
I was listening in breathless amazement.
"Well," I managed to articulate, "you people must be different--or else
those press-agents--"
"Forget the press-agents," said John Emerson, "and let *me* tell you!
"If ever you get to the place where you care no more about 'pep' or
ambition, and want a place to live cheaply, a little bungalow, a little Ford,
some kind of a society to belong to, a new kind of religion--in short a place
to die in--California's a good place to go. But,--never again!"
And now we're wondering!
If those two amazing people could accomplish so much in a land where
there's no "pep," and where the very atmosphere is deadly to ambition, what
will they do when they really begin doing things in li'l ole New York?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 19, 1918
E. V. Durling
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita Loos Sues for Divorce
Anita Loos, whom the Government officials always eye suspiciously as
being a violator of the child labor law, surprised the film colony this week
by announcing she was really a great big girl in many ways. Anita said she
was married two years ago, but only for two days, to a certain Frank Pallma.
La Petite Enfant Anita eloped with Frank and ran away to Coronado, but they
simply couldn't get along. Anita appeared before Judge York of Los Angeles
this week, and the Judge looking over the top of his desk, said: "What can I
do for you, little girl?"
"I want a divorce," said Anita. After the Judge had recovered
consciousness, he signed the necessary papers without a murmur.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 25, 1918
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita Loos comes forward and says she wants to resign within a short
time from her present occupation. One wonders why any one who has been as
singularly successful as this little lady should care to give it all up.
"I want to go abroad and entertain the soldiers. Not in the way they
have been entertained, but in a way John Emerson and I have planned and hope
to be able to do."
Miss Loos would like to take a camera with her, and to write scenarios
for the boys, and then to have Mr. Emerson direct them.
"The boys could play in the picture," explained Anita. "We could take
wigs, costumes, etc., and think what fun it would be for them to see
themselves after the pictures were made."
John Emerson suggested they might import a few actresses--to take the
leading feminine role. Anita promptly vetoed this.
"Not at all, the boys could dress up and play both the male and female
parts," she said.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 29, 1918
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
All of our playmates, it seems, are going West at one time or another.
Anita Loos and John Emerson are going to start for the golden sunshine of
California in January to make their next picture. They promise to come back
after the picture is made, but sometimes promises are not kept. Anita is
just getting over a flirtation with the influenza, and spent her Christmas
holidays in bed trying to escape the pneumonia.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 16, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
To Whom Hath Shall Be Given
Just before I take my pen in hand to write, in a prologue or whatever
the preface to an article is called, I want to ask my readers to pardon me if
I get sloppy and indulge in too much gush. To know Anita Loos is to become a
Loos enthusiast and I have known the young lady well for many a month. I
fear me therefore I shall speak in terms of the superlative, a thing a writer
should never do.
Anita knows me pretty well, too, and when I phoned her and said, "I want
an interview," she at once became suspicious and said: "What have I done or
what haven't I done?"
"You have done a lot of things," I said. "You have proven yourself a
master of satire, and have endowed the screen world with a kind of comedy
that G. Bernard Shaw would be proud to claim for his very own brain child."
"Been working too hard again, dear," said Anita: "better come and have
lunch with me tomorrow and we will talk things over."
"Fine," I said, "and you come prepared to be interviewed, because this
is going to be an interview luncheon."
Well, we had our luncheon, Anita and I, at the Ritz, but when John
Emerson heard we were having a party he was so afraid we would talk about him
he came along, and thus our talk became a three-cornered affair, with John
occasionally breaking in on our feminine chatter with some dry remark.
Anita, whom all the world knows stands about four feet eleven in her
little silk stockings, is everything one wouldn't expect to find in such a
literary genius. She is dainty, well groomed, pretty enough to make people
crane their necks and stare to get a look at her, and withal a very sane,
well-balanced young woman. She looks like a saucy little brown wren.
"Why didn't you ever go into pictures, Nita?" I asked.
She laughed and, putting her head mischievously on one side, said:
"David Griffith killed every ambition I ever had to be an actress.
"One day he came up to me in the studio and said, 'I suppose I ought to
put you in a picture, but you wouldn't do--you look too sophisticated to play
ingenue parts, and you are too little to be a vamp.'
"So after that I was left flat and cold, with nothing to do but write."
"John, you ought to put her in a picture," I suggested for the ninety-
ninth time.
"I can get a hundred like her to act, but only one Anita to write. If
we ever find a time when we don't have to burn the midnight oil evolving
plots and building plays, I will put her in a picture."
Just now the organization of Emerson and Loos are working on a play, in
addition to making pictures.
"We started out bravely enough," said Anita, "to write the play, the
synopsis of which has been accepted, but that was as far as we got. There is
so much chance in a stage production, and when you can make money and be sure
of a motion picture, it seems foolish to side-track any picture ideas for a
stage play."
Anita is a wise little business woman. She has a chest full of
brilliant ideas she has jotted down during the last few years in odd moments.
These she is holding for better prices, because she believes the time is
coming when there will be a bigger demand for stories and when the pictures
will be willing to pay fabulous sums to get the screen material.
"Take, for example," she explained, "a scenario I did seven years ago.
I was offered last week three times the amount I hoped to get at the time it
was written."
"Did you sell it?" I asked her.
"I certainly did not. I believe in holding on to my stories. People
hang on to their stocks, and my plots and ideas are just as valuable to me--
I want to get top prices for them."
The Emerson-Loos affiliation is one of the strong combinations in
pictures. Anita, it would seem, is prolific with ideas--some of them
brilliant, splendid and sparkling with real genius; some of them erratic,
impractical and entirely visionary. John, who works in a more methodical
manner, has a dramatic mind, and he is a balance for Anita, killing the ideas
which he considers unsuitable for fostering, and keeping the big ones which
he knows can be used to good advantage for the screen.
Both Anita Loos and John Emerson have a delicious sense of humor.
A subtle, delicate humor that is unlike anything else in pictures. They know
how to write satire, and they recognize the value of this brand of fun. It
is Anita who supplies much of this, and John--who knows how to tone it down
so as to make it picture material.
Their business partnership has grown into a romance. Anita has been
burdened with a husband with whom she only lived with three days, and whom a
judge in California has kept fastened to her like grim death for these many
months.
"I wonder," said Anita, "when I hear of these people changing husbands
with the seasons, how they accomplish it. I have been four years trying to
get rid of one."
The spirit of adventure has always been strong in Anita. That is why
she married, after the briefest sort of a courtship.
"You see," explained Anita, "I always wanted to see New York. He
promised to take me to this wonder city, and so I married him to get my
transportation. He only had money enough to get as far as Omaha. On the
third day I went out to get a hair net and I forgot to come back."
Anita did eventually get to New York and she sold The Morning Telegraph
a story--her first one. That is why she says deep in her heart there is a
soft place for this sheet. It was Irving J. Lewis who bought this first Loos
story. Her scenarios attracted the attention of David Griffith, and after
buying plays for Pickford and other of his stars he sent her money to come to
the studios and become a regular contributor.
All of this did little to give Miss Loos any fame. She made only a
small salary, and it wasn't until she wrote such amazingly clever things for
Douglas Fairbanks that the name Anita Loos began to be whispered about. John
Emerson at that time was Fairbanks' director and together they planned and
executed the kind of Fairbanks comedy that was destined to bring Mr.
Fairbanks into the foreground as one of the greatest screen comedians in the
world. The Emerson-Loos brains was such a good combination that after the
Fairbanks organization was in the hands of other writers and directors Anita
and John decided to stick together and they came on to New York and signed a
contract with Famous Players-Lasky to direct their own productions.
These comedies are being released now; and they have all the old-time
Emerson-Loos sparkle. Anita Loos knows how to write sub-titles. It was she
who revolutionized the writing of these descriptive lines. Before Miss Loos
took her pen in hand and injected some pep and punch into captions, they were
funeral affairs used for necessity rather than by reason of their interest
for the public.
Long before folk new who Anita Loos was they were talking of the
Fairbanks titles. Then when this young lady stepped forward those who saw
her could not believe so young a mind had created a style of captions that
sounded like a combination of Cobb, Shaw, Ade and the rest of the world's
greatest humorists.
And Anita Loos has made money. She is a good business woman as well as
an artist. Her income tax is a joy to the heart of Uncle Sam, who likes
these fat salaries. Much of this money is in the bank, and while Anita Loos
is one of the best-groomed and best-dressed women I know, she doesn't put
every penny into clothes. She figures there might be a rainy day some time,
and she is one of the folk who will be prepared for any such a catastrophe.
If, some fine day, walking down the avenue, you should happen to pass a
little figure in a blue suit, a fancy little chapeau set on a dark, curly
head, and a pair of dark eyes, expressive and dancing, if you take a second
look you will probably find you are face to face with Anita Loos. She may
have Cootie with her. Cootie is her prize Boston Bull terrier, which John
Emerson bought for her at the Dog Show--and she may have John with her. If
so, you may be sure they are headed for some film office or to talk to some
budding playwright or other. Like all really big people, among their
multitudinous duties these busy ones always find the time to pass on a little
encouragement to those who need it. It's a part of their philosophy. You
will understand when you see Anita--that is one reason she always carries a
smile of contentment. Most people who give others happiness are usually
content.
Our luncheon lasted an hour and a half and we gossiped some, though a
man in the party is always a safeguard when one is inclined to give rein to
one's innermost thoughts--so perhaps it was a good thing John went along--we
might have had as the foundation for an interview all of the most recent
world scandals--it's been done, before, they tell me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 30, 1919
VARIETY
Anita Loos and John Emerson will be married early this summer. Though
they have not yet decided on the exact date, they have already taken a house
at Great Neck, Long Island.
Miss Loos is now living there with Frances Marion, who is chiefly known
as the scenario writer for Mary Pickford. Miss Loos first came to attention
in the picture world when it was learned that it was she who devised the
titles and inserts for Douglas Fairbanks' early pictures.
John Emerson is one of the best known of the directors. He and Miss
Loos have been collaborating on pictures for Paramount for several months.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 18, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Perhaps Anita Loos and Norma Talmadge will never grow up. Some folk are
like Peter Pan and never do get beyond the childhood stage. At any rate, for
some days these two have had a hankering for bobbed hair. On Tuesday they
decided to yield to temptation and suffered the barber to remove their locks.
Fine. Bobbed hair, as every one knows, is an indication of temperament and
the spirit of an artistic soul. Besides, thought these two, bobbed hair is
unusual and chic.
That very night they went down to the Village to see the Provincetown
Players. These are the players appearing in Susan Glaspell's dramas in a
renovated barn or blacksmith shop--the little imitation of a theatre bearing
the words "Tie Pegasus Here," where once a horse stood.
Well, after the visit nowhere in New York were there two more thoroughly
disillusioned girls. Bobbed hair in Greenwich Village is no rarity; it is a
habit. Everywhere Norma looked she could see a bobbed head, and every place
Anita's glance strayed there was a shorn head thrust at her. Here, at least,
bobbed hair was so common as to be undesirable.
Next day these same two spent the day haunting beauty parlors trying to
get switches and braids enough to fill vacancies so lately inhabited by
flowing locks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 15, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita in Harness Again
Anita Loos made a vow after it took three long years to untangle her
matrimonial alliance with a man with whom she lived but three days, she would
never, never, so help me heaven, marry again. But you cannot always stay the
hand of that little god called Cupid, and before Anita realized it she had
promised John Emerson to repeat the words, "Until death do us part," with
him.
You see, Anita and John have worked together directing and writing
scenarios for so long a time, and they have managed to jog along in a fairly
comfortable manner. And if one can agree over plots, plans and direction,
well, one is pretty apt to be able to travel the pathway of life together
without so very many hitches.
So, to make a long and flowery tale short, today at 1 o'clock, on the
lawn at the country place of Norma Talmadge in Bayside, John and Anita are
going to agree to love, cherish--and obey (?). Wedding cakes, flowers and a
real wedding have been given little Nita by the Schencks, even a wedding
breakfast. And every one is saying they know Anita and John will live happy
ever after.
We will see who will be boss of the Emerson-Loos combination now. Anita
has a will of her own, and so has John, and if two wills get together--well--
but then, 'tis little tempests like this that make life worth while.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 22, 1919
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
(photo caption)
Anita Loos, Now Mrs. John Emerson
This photograph shows Miss Loos holding her bride' bouquet. It was taken at
Norma Talmadge's home in Bayside, L.I., just before the ceremony. Norma
Talmadge is, of course, the girl in the large hat, and Constance is the
person wearing the pleasant smile. It was Constance who later got the ring
in the bride's cake.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 27, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
David Griffith's "Fall of Babylon" brought out its usual gathering of
film folk. Every time Mr. Griffith has a new thought in films, the whole
picture world turns out to see what he has to offer now. Of course "Babylon"
is not new, merely a frank amplification of his far-famed "Intolerance," but
then there is always something new in atmosphere in every Griffith
entertainment.
Constance Talmadge, who in the Mountain Girl has the big role of the
play, sat upstairs in a box with Anita Loos, John Emerson, Norma and Natalie
Talmadge and Joseph Schenck...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
November 5, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
[from an item giving the details of the marriage of Frances Marion and
Fred Thomson, and their honeymoon, with Mary Pickford along on the honeymoon
trip]...Everyone hopes they will be happy, excepting Anita Loos, who went on
her honeymoon alone, John Emerson being busy at the time. She thinks it's a
shame Frances is to have the Pickfords for company. She was lonely.
"'Tain't fair," she says.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 29, 1920
NEW YORK TIMES
The Emerson-Loos Way
John Emerson and Anita Loos believe in the use of many subtitles, or
leaders, in dramatic motion pictures. In a recent issue of the Photoplay
Magazine they emphasized the use of many words as "one of the secrets of good
screen dramatization," wereupon the present writer, who believes that
subtitles should be employed only when necessary to make pictures clear and
that the effort of scenarists and directors should be to avoid the necessity
for their use, disagreed with Mr. Emerson and Miss Loos to the extent of a
column or so. Their reply to what he had to say on the subject follows:
"It is a skeptical age, wary of new theories, and undoubtedly The New
York Times editor who took exception to our advice urging the use of many
subtitles in photoplays voices a prejudice common among critics of screen
drama. But since it is this greater freedom in the use of written inserts
(as against the old idea that the perfect screen drama would contain no
subtitles at all) that has guided us in our work for Douglas Fairbanks,
Constance Talmadge and others during the last six years, we feel that a
protest and perhaps an explanation is called for.
"To understand the new movement among photoplay Writers who are
beginning to realize the advantage of many subtitles, one must first conceive
that physical action is neither as realistic nor as dramatic as mental
action. A jealous husband who pounds a table and throws a paper weight at
his wife does not thrill an audience as would a cool, deadly stare of hatred
from this same husband's eyes.
"But mental action cannot be adequately expressed in pantomime alone,
without the use of words. Therefore, if the photoplay is not to consist for
the most part of unrealistic gesturings and rushings and distracting physical
motion in other forms. the audience must be kept constantly informed by the
use of words. Satire, in particular, requires this technique because of its
tendency to subtleties, to skating parties on the thinnest of ice, to shades
of meaning which can hardly be expressed in words themselves. Photoplays
which attempt to get along without subtitles are usually humorless
melodramas, possessing a three dimensional quality--that is. they are not
only very long and very broad, but also very thick. Exceptions may be found,
of course, such as 'My Four Years in Germany,' wherein both characters and
incidents were so well known to the audience that practically no explanations
were necessary
"Again, attempts to limit the freedom of screen authors in the use of
subtitles almost invariably result in limiting their artistic field. One of
the chief advantages of the screen as a medium is its boundless range in time
and space. But every jump in time or space necessitates a 'lapse-of-time' or
'change-of-locale' title to carry the audience over the gap. A story might
be told without any subtitles at all, but it would have to be told on one
spot without any break in time. An author who takes full advantage of his
medium will not hesitate to skip between continents or to cut back a century
if need be.
"We need not point out how highly involved plots, formerly unavailable
as photo-dramatic material, may now be screened by linking together widely
separated bits of action with subtitles which in themselves constitute
'action.' Nor need we point out that the photoplay author's most useful tool
in heightening suspense is a foreshadowing subtitle, which, preceding each
important bit of action, arouses the curiosity of the spectator by hinting,
ever so slightly, at what is to come.
"We must, however, discuss the last and greatest reason for the use of
many subtitles, namely, characterization. The chief criticism of photoplays
has always been that characterizations were weak, wooden, faulty. The
cleverest scenario writer could not portray the manysided personality of
a J. M. Barrie heroine in mere pantomime. Subtitles, in 'tempo' with the
scene, and characteristic of the speaker, are necessary to bring the people
of the photoplay to life. In this way the screen dramatists may hope to
overcome the main disadvantage of the photoplay as compared with legitimate
drama--that is, the lack of dialogue.
"Subtitles are now a convention, and modern audiences are accustomed to
a stoppage of action for a printed insert. Instead of boring them or
'telling the story in words,' subtitles often have a contrary effect. Watch
any movie audience and you will notice that after a good subtitle every one
sits up and looks eagerly at the screen; for a good subtitle has the effect
of clarifying action that is past and at the same time throwing forward the
mind of the audience to the next scene, without giving it away beforehand.
The greatest difficulty in the past has been that the makers of pictures have
assumed that the spectators understood the action as well as themselves. But
we will wager that at least 30 per cent of an average audience at an average
feature picture are somewhat hazy as to characters, locations and the plot
itself throughout the play.
"If the photoplay is to become a fine art, the author must be permitted
to express in words the finer shades of meaning and the subtleties of
character which lie too far beneath the surface for pantomime portrayal. We
could not possibly have expressed, for example, the theme of our latest
Constance Talmadge picture, 'In Search of a Sinner,' without words and many
of them, since the entire plot depends on the psychological reactions of a
woman who has become fed up on 'good men.' Perhaps some day some one may
invent a means of conveying these things to an audience without stopping
action for inserts. For the present, we must be content with our medium as
it is and realize that the whole intellectual as well as artistic side of the
photoplay is linked up with the use of many subtitles. Without adequate
subtitling, the photoplay becomes a humorless, unhuman spectacle--a
succession of pictures with perhaps an emotional appeal--but never a drama.
"There is of course a limit to the quantity of subtitles which may be
used and common sense should determine this. It is better, however, in
writing the first continuity to work without any sense of restriction in this
respect and afterward to cut or combine them where possible. Naturally, it
is unwise to express in subtitles what may better be told in action, and the
cardinal sin is to write a dull, boresome insert which is not in accord with
the scene and which jars the audience out of its illusion. That the
subtitles will be good as well as plentiful is assumed. just as it is also
assumed that the story is of a kind which calls for many subtitles and not
simply a slapstick comedy or 'East Lynn' melodrama."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May-June, 1920
Jimmie Mayer
NATIONAL MAGAZINE
Closeup on Scenario Peers
The screen's most famous woman-writer, ninety-eight pounds in weight,
little more than a girl in years, pioneer of the scenario writers, daintily
fingered her fork that crushed her salmon salad in mouthable portions and
looked across the table at her smiling husband.
Mr. and Mrs. John Emerson were an excellently suited couple. It
wouldn't take a "love expert," which happens to be the title of one of their
latest collaborations, to tell that.
"Oh, but how I hated him the first time I saw him," said Anita Loos
(Mrs. John Emerson). "I was out on the lot when he sauntered over and we
were introduced. I remember how he came over and said:
"'I'm sorry, but I didn't understand your name. Anita Loos. H-m-m.
Don't believe I have. I suppose you do characters--midgets and the like.'
"'Like fun,' I told him. 'I'm a scenario writer. You must not know
much about the film business if you haven't heard of me.'"
"We didn't get along very well at first," smiled Mr. Emerson. "Anita
couldn't understand why I hadn't heard about her wonderful subtitles and I
would not apologize for my ignorance."
"Ignorance," repeated Mrs. Emerson. "Why, dear, you wouldn't apologize
for anything. You sugared your coffee first the other night. And you
haven't apologized for that yet."
Mr. Emerson hastened to express regrets.
"But how did you happen to happen to become engaged?" the interviewer
queried.
"It was this way," said Emerson. "We worked together on pictures so
much and we received so many contracts for more work that she didn't have
time for any other man except me, and I didn't have time for any other woman
except her."
"And we're both glad of it," said both in unison, almost as though
trained.
"And so am I," concluded the interviewer.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 23, 1920
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita Loos and Mercelta Esmonde brought back Ann Pallette with them from
the Coast. She is the wife of Eugene Pallette and an actress of considerable
talent herself. The girls thought she needed a change and believe if she
likes New York as much as they do she will enjoy every minute of her
vacation. And, by the way, Anita Loos has done nothing but tell every one
how well she likes New York and how much she hopes she can always live here.
She is one staunch soul who is not in the least intrigued by the sunshiny
climate of Los Angeles and Hollywood.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 27, 1920
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
The Emersons Sail for Europe
Mr. and Mrs. John Emerson sailed last Wednesday [June 23] on La France
for Europe. On this journey Anita Loos retains the name Mrs. Emerson, for it
is essentially John's trip. As president of the Actor's Equity he is sailing
for Europe to investigate the actors' societies in Paris and London. It is
his hope to be able to perfect an affiliation between the Equity in America
and the theatrical organizations abroad...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 15, 1920
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita Loos came home with a trunk full of new clothes. Although Paris
is supposed to mean motion picture locations and plots for scenarios, she
frankly admits its greatest attraction for her is the shops. At luncheon
yesterday she kept a whole table entertained telling of her experiences. The
latest cult and fad, according to Miss Loos, is the Art of Dada, over which
artistic Paris is raving. This is a step-sister to the Futurist art, and is
something on the same order, only more so. It looks, says Miss Loos, like a
black button on a splotch of white. It is adapted from the African fetish
dances and certainly as wild.
...The Emersons have written a book on "How to Write Photoplays." Anita
says, it's a jazz story written in ragtime and John agrees with her...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 1920
Rosalind Davis
NATIONAL MAGAZINE
John and Anita Return Home
Everyone has heard of shell-shocked people and shell-shocked towns. It
has remained for John Emerson and Anita Loos, best know of American scenario
writers, to return from Europe with tales of a shell-shocked art.
It is their own art--the motion pictures--which suffers from this
curious malady. Last Spring these two veteran dramatists, whose stories for
Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Burke, and Constance and Norma Talmadge have made
them famous, went overseas to investigate the artistic possibilities of the
European movies. Summer found them back in their New York "workshop" filled
with enthusiasm--for the movies of America.
Mr. Emerson is a tall, lean figure of a man, with a singularly satirical
turn of the eyebrows. His wife, who still writes under the name of Anita
Loos, is a petite brunette person with a retrousse nose and a weird trick of
braiding her hair Indian fashion, which set a vogue among even the blase
coiffeurs of Paris. They are to be found during working hours in a large
room tastily furnished with two kitchen chairs, a weary looking deal table
and about nine thousand feet of snakey film--film which coils itself under
the chairs and over the lamp fixtures and about the feet of the unwary. The
Emerson-Loos collaborators use the table to sit on, while they put their feet
on the chairs and dash off "stuff" on yellow pads held in their laps--stuff
worth approximately nine dollars a word at present scenario prices.
"If the movies grow better, it will be America that improves them," said
Mr. Emerson from his perch on the table. "We went abroad in search of
scenery, scenarios and other adjuncts of photoplay production. We found the
scenery.
"As to the rest of it, we can only say that no American movie magnate
needs lose sleep over a haunting dread of foreign competition. The plays of
the stage and the cinema alike, in England, France and Germany, are
incredibly poor. The movies are like the archaic productions which filled
our Nickelodeons some ten years ago--dim, flickering affairs with little plot
and no sequence whatsoever."
And he shook his head dismally. Miss Loos put aside her pad to take up
the theme.
"The troubles of the stage and cinema abroad came out of the war," she
said. "Authors and directors are suffering from the nervous strain. They
told us so themselves, everywhere. Some of them had been two and three years
in the trenches; others had been bombarded for days on end in London and
Paris. Their creative faculties had been temporarily numbed by these
appalling experiences.
"Perhaps you think this is overstating the case. Let me tell you that
both Mr. Emerson and myself had the same experience at the start of the war,
when the excitement made concentration impossible. We were writing and
directing the Douglas Fairbanks photoplays at the time, and we simply had to
stop and take a long vacation. And if we could feel the effects of a war six
thousand miles away, how much more nerve-wracking must have been the
experiences of the playwrights and scenario writers who were in the thick of
it.
"During our stay abroad we visited as many studios as possible. We
discovered that in all of Europe there is not a single movie plant wherein a
picture equal to even a mediocre American photoplay could be produced--with
the exception of one studio recently build abroad by an American firm in the
face of persistent opposition from the foreign producers. It is again the
effect of the war. The impresarios are still overwhelmed by the great
national catastrophe; instead of starting anew to build up their industry
along technical lines developed in America while they were fighting, they are
deluding themselves into the belief that with a few old barns, equipped with
dim electric lights and flimsy canvas scenery, they can wrest the control of
the motion pictures away from America where for the past three years it has
been the fifth national industry."
And she told of millions of dollars spent in importing American authors,
directors and actors to teach the English, French and Italians the game, and
how these artists were forced to return incontinently to their own lands when
they discovered that, in Europe, they were entirely without the tools of the
trade. She told of foreign governments which based their hopes of
rehabilitation on the creation of a great motion picture industry--hopes
foredoomed to failure because the producers will not let themselves be guided
by the experiences of the Americans.
And while Mrs. Emerson was speaking there was not a solitary sound that
rivaled her for the attention of her audience. It was her description,
mingled with the expression of her personal views on the subject, that made
her words unmistakably out of the ordinary. The writer listened intently for
epigrams and cute sayings. But the clever little sub-titler used none. But
what she said was clear and to the point.
"Europe is six years behind us in the motion picture industry," said Mr.
Emerson, as his wife finished. "Perhaps she will not catch up for twenty
years. Europe has the most beautiful scenery in the world and, in fact, we
toured even the battle scarred areas in search of 'locations' for photoplays.
But so long as the authors and producers remain in their present shaken state
of nerves, there can be no advance in the European pictures. The overseas
movie folk are making mistakes, and they know they are making mistakes. They
make a curiously pathetic appeal to visiting Americans--sort of 'what's-wrong-
with-the-world' query. It is a condition which calls for the greatest
sympathy on the part of America, for if Europe is behind us in her drama, it
is due to an accident, the accident of the war, and not to any--"
Miss Loos nodded and epitomized the situation in two words.
"They're shell-shocked," she said.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 27, 1920
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita Loos has a cook with enough temperament to be an opera singer.
Her kitchen must be painted a certain odor, her pots and pans of a special
variety, and her surroundings in harmony with her own ideas of beauty. But
she can cook, and so Anita and John Emerson have permitted her to have her
own way in all things. Now, ever since Anita married John she has been a
good union woman, and because she believes in practicing what she preaches
she has endeavored to take her Gomperism into the kitchen.
One day, thinking to ingratiate herself with the temperamental Bridget,
Anita said to her:
"I suppose you are a member of the union, Biddie, and are working on a
time scale as well as a wage rate?"
("Her salary made me think she must have the support of the Federation
of Labor," said Anita.)
"Now, you look here, Mrs. Emerson," said Biddie, holding her rolling pin
at a forty-five-degree angle right under Anita's nose. "Don't you insult me.
Do I look like them degrading sort that belongs to a union?"
After which Mrs. Emerson, who with her husband, is preaching the value
of union labor in all things, faded from sight.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 1921
PHOTOPLAY
John Interviews Anita
And Anita interviews John, just as if they were merely friends instead of
husband and wife!
"Whenever anybody interviews Miss Loos," said John Emerson with a grave
nod of the head, "they always say something about what clever titles she
writes." He sighs despondently. "Really, there are a lot of other
interesting things she does--you have no idea!"
"Humph!"
Miss Anita Loos said this. It is a hard word or expression to put into
type. Men never say "humph," but women say it so well that it means as much
as any ten thousand words any poor boob of a man may muster.
It was very evident John Emerson quailed or shuddered or, at least,
cringed.
Miss Anita Loos eyed him frostily.
"Humph!" she said again. "Whenever he gives an interview he always
tells 'em how clever he thinks women interviewers are. Of course, it always
has to be a woman interviewer who comes to see him. And after he tells them
that, why, of course, they go away and spread molasses all over him."
John Emerson drew a deep breath.
"Listen," he said, "listen to me. I'll interview her for you and give
you the real low-down. No gallantry. No softy-stuff. I used to be a
reporter on a newspaper that didn't care what it said. I'll show you."
And so John Emerson interviewed Anita Loos, and Anita Loos interviewed
John for PHOTOPLAY.
But, really, they were awfully sweet about it. They behaved just as
cordial and polite as if they were merely friends instead of being husband
and wife.
Studies in Still Life
or
Anita, the Beautiful Scenarist, at Work
by
John Emerson
Readers will of course understand that the title, "Anita, The Beautiful
Scenarist," refers to the woman's physical charms, rather than to any quality
of her writings. In fact, it is common knowledge that only the
susceptibility of producers and talented collaborators (such as her husband)
who are clever enough to make passable pictures from bad stories, has made
possible the production of Loos scenarios equal in volume to an unabridged
edition of What Every Woman Thinks She Knows. I found the subject of this
article dozing pleasantly over a story which she had promised her husband to
have completed the day previous and proceeded to base my interview on one
simple, direct query, asking only a plain answer to a plain question, namely:
"What makes your stories so punk?"
Instead of giving the required explanation, the defendant began to talk
on an entirely different theme, to wit, why her stories are so good. She
roused herself and declared:
"It's the writer's own personality that makes the story. That's why I
try to keep myself happy and cheerful. I have a motto which is the key to my
character: 'High O' Heart, toujours High O' Heart.' And when you ask me why
my stories are so good--"
"Pardon me,--I asked why they are so bad," I said, firmly. Then as she
did not answer, I tried to make the interview easier by suggesting, "Perhaps
it is lack of education? Who are your favorite writers of fiction,
excluding, of course, your press agent?"
"Thackeray, Shaw, Moliere, Dunsany, Balzac, Shakespeare--" she began to
rattle off blithely, but it was evident that she was reading the names over
my shoulder from the volumes on her husband's private book shelf.
"One moment," I said. "What do you consider to be Shakespeare's best
novel?" And, believe it or not, the woman was unable to answer. I then
decided to follow up this theme and, modeling my interview after the popular
standards, drew from her the following facts. Favorite composer--Irving
Berlin. Favorite poems--Campbell Soup ads. Favorite meal--luncheon (says
she almost always gets up for luncheon). Favorite sport--sleeping.
"But," she added with a touch of sadness in answering the latter
question, "I am troubled with insomnia."
"Do you mean you can't sleep?"
"I seem to sleep quite well at night," she replied, "and sleep very
comfortably in the morning. But in the afternoon I can't sleep at all."
"Perhaps it is the weight of years," I suggested. "You're not as young
as you once were. By the way, just how old are you?"
"It just occurred to me that I haven't answered your very first question
about my stories," said Miss Loos with sudden volubility. "I believe I do
know the answer."
"What?"
"A punk collaborator."
You can see for yourself that the key to the woman's character is, as
she says, High O' Heart--And Low O'Brow.
Travels with a Donkey, or
Around The Studio with John Emerson
by Anita Loos
Before me stood a tall, lean, sad-looking individual who can best be
described as resembling George Bernard's statue of Ambrham Lincoln. I knew
it was none other than John Emerson, the movie writer who, more than any
other living man, has made the spoken drama popular with modern audiences.
He has a keen, intelligent face; but his character is not easily understood.
He took me by the hand and led me to a balcony where we could get a clear
view of the brilliantly lighted studio.
"There lies before you the greatest industry in the world," he said in a
melancholy voice. "Art--imagination--poetry are in the very air about you.
Those people who toil before you under these glaring lights are striving,
under my direction, to produce a drama written by one of the greatest artists
in the world. And even as I wrote this drama, I was repeating to myself the
magic words, 'Art--imagination--poetry.'"
"Beautiful, beautiful," I said. "Where did you read it?"
"I found it in some of Griffith's writings," he said, realizing that
further concealment was impossible. "The Sixth Volume of 'An Appreciation of
David Wark Griffith, by D. W. G.' has it, or perhaps the second volume of his
third autobiography--I forgot which."
He took me by the hand and led me further into the mazes of the
building. He stopped before a great desk, piled high with manuscripts.
"My photoplays," he said proudly. "I have a regular system for turning
them out."
"Your system must force your to write a great deal," I remarked, eyeing
the pile.
"Well, no," admitted Mr. Emerson. "The fact is, my wife writes them and
I read them. That's fair enough, isn't it?"
He reached over and pulled a script from the pile.
"Let me show you something good," he said. "What do you think of this
comedy scene? I wrote THIS myself."
The scenario read something like this:
INTERIOR OF MARY'S BOUDOIR.--
The maniac rushes inn, brandishing his long knife, and seizes
Mary, who is sitting by the window combing her golden hair.
Before she can utter a word, he plunges the knife into her
beautiful back.
TITLE: MARY WAS ALL CUT-UP ABOUT IT.
The maniac continues to plunge the knife again and again into
the girl.
FADE OUT.
"I guess that'll get a laugh," said Mr. Emerson jovially. "That part
about how she was all cut up, I mean. That's humor--that's satire--that's
what the movies need."
As I said, it is hard to understand Mr. Emerson's real character. He
has a very intelligent face.
-------
After reading the twin interviews as printed herein, and which we
guarantee to be free from editorial operations of any character whatsoever,
we feel rather sad.
We are afraid that there is nothing serious in the concrete cosmos of
the Emerson-Loos menage.
We even hazard a guess that there is seldom any serious conversation
around the Emerson-Loos front parlor. We cannot conceive Anita becoming
excited because the butcher-boy fetched half a dozen pork chops when she
distinctly ordered lamb chops.
We cannot picture the furnace fire going out (oh, yes, they do have
furnaces in California bungalows, no matter what the Chamber of Commerce says
about the Perpetual Sunshine) and John Emerson flapping down the cellar
stairs in his old slippers to 'tend to it.
As a matter of fact, after running a coldly critical eye through these
twin interviews, we have arrived at the regretful decision that John Emerson
delights to josh Anita Loos; and we feel constrained to believe that Anita
Loos is not above jesting with her husband.
Indeed, we feel a certain conviction that John Emerson and Mrs. John
Emerson are a pair of incorrigible kidders!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 11, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Mr. and Mrs. John Emerson have moved into town. Now we know the
theatrical season has really opened. A first night without John in the
audience is like celery without salt. He gives a necessary flavor he and his
diminutive wife. Anita and John are at the Algonquin until they can find an
apartment. Meanwhile the team of Loos and Emerson and plotting to corner
another flock of comedy ideas.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 25, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
The Emersons--John and Anita--have moved into an apartment. Everything
is fine excepting the telephone. The company absolutely refuses to add a
telephone to their household equipment, giving as an excuse there are too
many orders in ahead. Now John and his diminutive wife make their living my
creating original ideas, and it is respectfully suggested they think up
something to force the telephone issue.
"Suppose some of our friends wish to make us a present?" said John.
"They will have no idea where to send the bot--I mean package."
As old friends of the family we suggest all gifts for John Emerson and
Anita Loos be sent to this office, and forwarded. Express prepaid.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
November 6, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Anita Loos is looking for a twin. Her intentions are not adoption. She
wants to sell the twin some clothes. Anita has three or four dresses, or
costumes, that are as good as new that she wants to sell. The great
difficult is in finding some one her size. There is no one in her immediate
set who is small enough to wear No. 12, the child's size Anita takes. But if
there is any one else who wants to buy some of Anita's clothes speak up. She
weighs about 96, is about 4 feet 11 inches tall, and looks like an animated
doll. The description is taken from life and the advertisement for the sale
is inserted free of charge.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 11, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
If Anita Loos and John Emerson had not appeared before the senior class
of Smith College and lectured on the practical side of motion pictures, we
might not have learned the part the new art will play in the lives of these
college women. We are so apt to look upon our field as one dedicated to
those who have chosen it because it requires more natural talent than
education, it is somewhat of a surprise to hear that a great college like
Smith is seriously considering the motion picture as a vocation.
Each year the emissaries from the various arts and professions are
summoned to talk to the senior class of Smith. On December 3,
representatives from the field of medicine and painting, music, journalism,
welfare work, advertising, law and the other largest vocations journeyed to
Northampton to lecture to these young Minervas. Groups of women who were
interested in one special branch listened to expert advice on the subject.
But it remained from the motion picture session to include the entire
senior class and many of their learned professors. Anita Loos and John
Emerson were scheduled to speak their little piece in the evening. The 500
members of the class attended in a body and were so absorbed in listening to
what the representatives from the field of film art had to say, there was no
question in the minds of the students which lecture was the most popular one
of the day.
It was not alone the lure of the silver screen and the fascination of
the world behind the studio doors that brought these serious-minded young
women to the motion picture conference; it was an earnest desire to learn
more about a new field that these advocates of feminism were eager to
explore.
Miss Loos spoke first and when she faced those 500 college girls and
their teachers there were many gasps of astonishment. Anita, with her short
bobbed hair, trim little figure and bright face, was a revelation. She
looked like a child instead of a celebrity who had come to bring a message.
But when she spoke every one realized why she has been featured in so many
magazine and newspaper articles as one of the best scenario writers in the
country.
There was great interest in her and what she had to say. The teachers
vied with the girls in their eagerness to catch all the pearls of wisdom that
fell from Anita's mouth. She told, in her own inimitable manner and with a
frankness and charm that captivated her learned audience, why the chorus girl
captures cinematograph honors while the college girl knocks at the studio
door in vain.
"The college girl," said Miss Loos, "must learn to sell herself
properly. She is too sensitive. If an opening is not created for her the
first time she calls, she is apt to become discouraged and give up in
disgust. The chorus girl, on the contrary, who is accustomed to fighting for
everything she gets, keeps pestering the directors and studio managers until
she forces the recognition she desires."
The speaker was bombarded with questions on how to prepare oneself for a
screen career. One young lady explained her interest in film work lay not so
much in acting as in directing. Miss Loos, who has had practical experience
in directing pictures, laid out a course of training for the young woman, who
announced she would follow it as soon as she finishes school.
Mr. Emerson followed his wife, and talked at some length...
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