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TRIBUTE

It's 1920. Warren G. Harding has just been elected President, the Nineteenth Amendment has given the vote to women, and America's first commercial radio station is on the air. Silent films are at the peak of their popularity - from the few remaining Nickelodeons to the opulent, big-city movie palaces complete with live orchestras - America's first entertainment craze is in full swing. Vaudeville is dead. Television hasn't even been born yet.

The public's frenzy for their favorite screen personalities verged on mass hysteria, and one man in particular was singled out as the hottest thing going: Douglas Fairbanks. The mere mention of his name could send the ladies into a swoon; his romantic adventures and heroic exploits even transformed male moviegoers into Fairbanks fans. That fact was never more evident than by judging the thousands of devotees that trailed Doug and Mary Pickford around the world after their March, 1920 wedding. Later that year, the pair would become the first residents of Beverly Hills, moving into an old hunting lodge Doug had converted into a 42-room mansion for his new bride. A reporter dubbed it "Pickfair." For the next decade, Pickfair would reign as the most prestigious address in America, second only to the White House. Crowds surrounded the gates day and night, awaiting a glimpse of their hero riding his horse or taking Mary for a boat ride in Pickfair's gargantuan swimming pool. Before Graceland, there was Pickfair. Before Beatlemania, there was Doug-and-Mary-mania.

Fairbanks was the movies' most elegant, dashing, and vital star in the `teens and 20s. His films, both his early comedies and the later swashbucklers, were nothing short of brilliant, inspiring both audiences and fellow filmmakers to this day. He cast a long and lasting shadow over Hollywood -- a true pioneer of the silent era, Fairbanks was also a shrewd businessman who had a vision vision for the future of the film industry, founding both United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  In the glory days of silent film, Douglas Fairbanks was the original King of Hollywood. This is his story.

He was born Douglas Elton Ulman in Denver, Colorado on May 23, 1883. His father, Charles Hezekiah Ulman, was a prominent New York attorney who had purchased several mining interests in the Rocky Mountains and relocated to the bustling cowtown of Denver in 1880. Ulman had left a wife, children and a lucrative law practice behind to go West, but he did not make the cross-country journey alone. Traveling with him was his new bride, Ella Adelaide Marsh, a lovely Southern belle. Ella and Charles had known each other for many years. When her first husband, John Fairbanks, died suddenly of tuberculosis, Ulman put her late husband's legal affairs in order. Ella later married a man named Wilcox, who by all accounts turned out to be an abusive louse. She went to Ulman again, and begged him to help her obtain a divorce from Wilcox. Although divorces were rarely granted to women in the 1870s, Ulman won the case and apparently, Ella's heart at the same time. They ran away together.

Ulman busied himself in Colorado with the mining business and by re-establishing his law offices. He and Ella had a baby boy, Robert (Doug's older brother) in 1881. Ulman loved the theatre and actually bore a startling resemblance to the actor Edwin Booth. Ulman often took his young sons to the theatre, sometimes escorting the boys backstage to meet the cast of traveling productions -- often the sizeable Ulman household provided  traveling actors overnight accommodations. Naturally, it wasn't long before Doug was reciting Shakespeare from memory. The early years of Doug's life were spent going on mining trips with his dad, learning to climb mountains, and, like most little boys, getting into as much trouble as possible. In many respects, Doug's first memories were those of a happy child -- but soon, they would be all that remained of his father.

Ulman was an alcoholic; his drinking only increased as all of his mining ventures failed and his fortunes decreased. Perhaps needing to escape the responsibilities of fatherhood, or in need of money himself, Ulman told his family he had decided to take a "temporary" position back in New York. In fact, he was campaigning for future President Benjamin Harrison. But the proud family's hopes were soon dashed when it became clear that Charles Ulman never intended to return to them or Denver.

Even though Doug was only five when his father abandoned him, Ulman's influence on Doug's character cannot be underestimated.  Perhaps it was due to Ulman that Doug chose to be an actor, to yearn for high society and to rub shoulders with Kings, Queens, and Presidents. Watching alcohol destroy his father's life and career compelled Doug to abstain from alcohol for most of his life. Conversely, the experience may have affected Doug's distant feelings toward fatherhood with his own son. Doug also learned that he and his brother Robert were illegitimate, as Ulman had never bothered to officially divorce his former wife before running off to Denver with Ella. His mother taught him at a very young age to conceal the fact that he was Jewish, considered a great embarrassment for any family aspiring to a middle class social existence in late 19th Century America.

Ella would have been hard-pressed at that point to even provide a middle class lifestyle for the boys - Ulman had left her with nothing. She now had three boys - Douglas, Robert, and their older brother John Fairbanks, from her first marriage. Still infuriated at Ulman, she had the boys names legally changed to Fairbanks, wishing to associate them with the prestigious Fairbanks family name. Englishman John Fairbanks (of whom Ella's first husband was a direct descendant) was one of the first settlers in Dedham, Massachusetts. The original Fairbanks House is known as the oldest dwelling in America. Although it is certainly understandable to see why his mother saw fit to change their names, this little "kink" in the family bloodline has caused researchers, historians, and geneaologists a great deal of confusion through the years!

By the time he was eleven, young Douglas took to the stage, doing amateur theatre around the Denver area. He did summer stock at the famous Elitch Gardens Theatre and in his teens had become a sensation in the local theatre community. He was so in demand as an actor that he never even bothered to finish high school, dropping out in his senior year. In 1900, Doug moved to New York, seeking fame on the Broadway stage. He took odd jobs, working as both a cattle freighter and as a clerk on Wall Street until he finally made his Broadway debut in 1902 as Florio in the Frederick Warde Company's production of "The Duke's Jester." Doug was ambitious, working hard to reach the top, yet true success on the stage eluded him.

In 1907, he married Anna Beth Sully, the beautiful blonde daughter of wealthy industrialist Daniel Sully ("the Cotton King").  Their wedding captured headlines in newspapers all up and down the eastern coast and the young couple were soon the toast of fashionable Rhode Island society. Beth's father wanted Doug to come work for him, convincing him that the theatre was no way to support a family. Doug obliged, and moved into the Buchanan Soap Company's offices in the Flatiron Building. Apparently, he was quite the soap salesman - one of his best-known antics involved eating a bar of soap to prove to a skeptical client just how pure Buchanan's soap was! The job didn't last long; within six months, Doug was back on Broadway. It turned out to be a fortunate choice - a few months after, the Buchanan Soap Company went broke and folded.

Doug and Beth had a son in 1909, named for his father. The next several years found Doug struggling to make a living on the stage; he could hardly provide the life that Beth, a socialite, expected for their son. By this time, old man Sully's fortunes had dwindled to nothing - now, her once-wealthy father was coming to Doug for financial help. The fine family home at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, had to be sold off to recoup Sully's debt, and the young couple suddenly found themselves living in a tiny room at New York's Algonquin Hotel. Tension surfaced at home, and it was clear that Fairbanks would have to make a major change. Douglas was already quite familiar with motion pictures, or "the flickers" as they were known among the "real actors" of Broadway, who scoffed loudly at this new phenomenon. But Doug could not resist the $104,000 offer made to him by the Triangle Film Corporation in 1914, although he did balk at first - "I know it's a lot of money, but the movies!"
 

Douglas Fairbanks arrived in Hollywood in 1915, an unlikely candidate for movie stardom at age 31. He worked under the tutelage of a very skeptical D.W. Griffith, who said of Doug: "He's got a head like a cantaloupe and he can't act." In spite of the odds, Doug went on to become one of the best early comedians of the silent screen, along with Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and his close friend Charlie Chaplin.

His first 26 films ranged from romances to wacky, madcap comedies; from social satires to westerns.
To the uninitiated, these films may prove surprising - especially to those expecting the suave swordsman of his later trademark epic pictures, but who can resist the big-hearted idiot he portrays in 1916's "The Matrimaniac," or the hilariously incompetent detective Coke Ennyday from "The Mystery of The Leaping Fish." (1916)?

By the late `teens, Douglas was such a popular actor that he was able to form his own production company, producing (and often writing under a pseudonym) his own movies as he saw fit, from his own studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. In 1917, while on a War Bonds publicity tour with Charlie Chaplin, he fell in love with Mary Pickford. Their romance was Hollywood's best kept secret for almost three years; both of them were still married to other partners and neither could risk their careers on a scandal. What would the public think?

It was around this time that Doug started writing books of the self-help variety. Some called it "armchair philosophy"; others claimed the books were ghostwritten, but upon reading them, those familiar with Fairbanks will recognize the style as clearly his own. Titles like "Laugh and Live" (1917) and "Making Life Worthwhile" (1918) reveal the basic message in his texts. Over the course of his career, Doug would publish four books, all well worth reading. Many researchers agree that these Fairbanks texts are some of the first published examples of today's "New Age" self-help books - once again, Douglas Fairbanks was blazing the trail.
 
 

He began to become more involved with the film industry as a businessman, and in 1919 formed the United Artists Corporation along with Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. The goal of UA was to provide independent distribution for artists who produced their own movies, and to break the big studios practice of "block booking" pictures into theatres. Merit alone would determine a picture's success or failure. The idea was fresh, new, ambitious, and for once, on the side of the artist. It upset the balance in Hollywood, luring big name directors and stars away from major studio contracts to make their own pictures. Now the lunatics had taken over the asylum, and a new era of filmmaking was born. UA restructured the "star system" as we know it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1920 was a pivotal year in Fairbanks's career; not only did he and Mary take the risk of divorcing their partners and getting married publicly, but he also took a great artistic risk: at the height of his popularity, Douglas Fairbanks again tampered with the proven formula of stardom. Audiences around the world were used to him as a comic, but he threw out a curve ball with "The Mark Of Zorro," his first adventure film. It turned out to be a tremendous success, and the classic tale of Don Diego Vega has been re-made over 50 times since. Both risks paid off generously.
 
 

Fairbanks followed up with more historic costume epics: "The Three Musketeers" (1921), "Robin Hood" (1922), "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924), "The Black Pirate" (1926), and "The Gaucho" (1927) - all stunningly beautiful works featuring the most outrageously expensive and elaborate sets money could buy, crowned of course, by the dashing hero and his love interest (you could always expect a great love story sub-plot in a Fairbanks picture). These films set the standard for adventure movies forever, with every last detail of production meticulously handled by Doug himself. No other versions since have even come close to capturing the beauty and grace of the originals. These were his masterpieces.

By 1927, Doug knew that his run as a box-office hero was drawing to a close. He was 44 years old, and could no longer look the part of the youthful swashbuckler or romantic lead, nor could he safely perform the dangerous stunts his audiences expected of him. He focused his attention instead of furthering the motion picture industry, which was undergoing major changes. Instead of fighting the advent of sound films, he was one of the first to come out in favor of them; a short publicity film of Douglas speaking was sent to movie theatres around the globe.

That year, he founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was elected it's first President. He would hold the office until 1931. In addition, he was chiefly involved in the opening of Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, the world's premiere movie palace (he and Mary being the first stars to put their famed hand and footprints in wet cement outside the theatre, hence the tradition). He also was a chief visionary and financier for the adjacent Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (named for his hero, Teddy Roosevelt), where the Academy kept it's offices and the site of the first Academy Awards ceremonies on May 16, 1929, with Douglas Fairbanks as Master of Ceremonies.

Doug still found time to make films during this busy period, and they are actually some of his best works. For the first time, audiences saw another side of Fairbanks - a more fallible character, a handsome idol who was now desperately trying to cope with the complexities of growing old. Although box-office receipts for films such as "The Gaucho" (1927), "The Iron Mask" (1928), and "Reaching For The Moon" (1931) were disappointing, these efforts are still very memorable, revealing more than a comic, hero, or lover - they showed a real man plagued by real problems.

Many film historians have wondered aloud why Fairbanks' career fizzled in the sound era. While this fact is true, it certainly wasn't for lack of a pleasing speaking voice. While many other silent-era actors and actresses found themselves out of work after the introduction of sound, this was because they failed studio-sponsored "talking" tests, or often because they had strong regional accents - many foreign actors could not even speak English. Clearly, none of these factors played a part in Fairbanks' case. Long before he ever leaped in front of a camera, it is important to remember that he was a popular star of the stage and had a well-trained, booming Broadway voice. Unlike his contemporaries Chaplin and John Gilbert, Fairbanks had nothing to fear with the coming of sound.

For over a decade, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford had ruled the world as Hollywood's King and Queen, by far the film world's most popular couple and celebrated actors of their time. Yet, these two had never made a picture together. When they finally agreed to do Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" in 1929, it came too late. The talking picture era was now well underway, and although Pickford and Fairbanks had strong voices that recorded well, perhaps audiences could only think of them as "silent" actors - rather ironic considering both were experienced stage thespians. Yet moviegoers seemed to associate them strictly with another era - an era which had now passed them swiftly by.

The film was a colossal disaster, and the pair fought constantly during it's making. When it flopped at the box office, Doug and Mary blamed each other. In fairness to both, perhaps neither was to blame; as fate would have it, the film was released in October 1929, right before the stock market crash that would set off the depression. Movie theatres sat empty as filmgoers everywhere shifted their focus from entertainment to basic survival. Even Pickford and Fairbanks, one of the world's wealthiest couples, suffered great damage from the crash - Doug's losses were reported to be in the millions. Many film historians point to this film as the reason for their subsequent breakup, although money problems, Doug's infidelity and Mary's alcoholism and fits of ill-temperament were also major contributing factors. Success had turned sour, failure took it's toll on a once-happy couple.

When his son, Doug Jr., decided to marry Joan Crawford in 1929, Doug and Mary disapproved loudly - their suspicions may not have been completely unfounded, as the marriage was troubled and only lasted a short time. Perhaps it was the mutual marital troubles that helped to bring father and son together again after a considerable period of estrangement; Doug Sr. had never liked the idea of Doug Jr.'s occupational choice. One famous actor in the family was enough, he reasoned. It was not easy for the aging faither to watch his young, dashing son take over the romantic leading roles that were once reserved for the elder Fairbanks.

By the early 30s, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were forgotten relics. Hollywood was full of fresh new faces, including Doug Jr., who was now making a name for himself as an actor (much to his father's regret). The industry had changed so much in such a short time: the days of presenting motion pictures as art were out; a new era of gangster movies, horrors, westerns, and musicals were in. Silent films were left behind, along with most of the stars of the era. Doug did not approve of the way the industry was going, especially his own company, United Artists (under the iron fist of Samuel Goldwyn), and lost interest in the business.

In 1933, Doug and Mary formally announced their retirement from motion pictures, and soonafter, their separation. Doug made one final film in 1934, Alexander Korda's brilliant "The Private Life Of Don Juan," a revealing look at an aging lover whose reputation has outrun him. Many consider it to be the finest, most personal performance of Doug's career.

By 1936, his divorce from Mary became official, and within months, he married his longtime mistress, Lady Sylvia Ashley (who would later wed Clark Gable). Sylvia, a onetime chorus girl who had married into English nobility, quickly became the outrage of Hollywood gossip circles when it was discovered that her husband, Lord Ashley, heir to the ninth earl of Shaftesbury was divorcing her and naming Fairbanks as co-respondent. Still, she was attracted to Douglas, though he was fifty and she twenty-nine. But a new element was added to his life; Sylvia liked to stay up late at night and party. It has been said that Fairbanks never took a drink in his life until those last few years with Sylvia Ashley, in an effort to please his new wife and appear sociable.

Mary Pickford was not so kind in her comments about the new Mrs. Fairbanks: "That woman will kill him," Mary said, shortly before her own marriage to bandleader and actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers in 1937. Other friends who were close to Fairbanks at the time agreed with Mary, including his own son, Doug Jr. They all worried that the late nights, drinking, rich diet, and three-pack-a-day cigarrete habit were taking a toll on him as he struggled to keep up with his energetic young wife. They were right. Doug's health was starting to fail him; he began to experience heart trouble. The doctor's diagnosis was straightforward: no more leaping from balconies.

The final years of his life were spent between an endless flurry of cruise ships (Doug was an experienced world traveler) and in quiet retirement at his home in Santa Monica, overlooking the Pacific ocean. However, in early 1939, Doug got the itch to make another film, and began writing a script, which was sadly still unfinished at the time of his death. On Dec. 12, 1939, Douglas Fairbanks died in his sleep of a heart attack at age 56. The King of Hollywood was gone. .

He is buried at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever - see photo). Thanks to the efforts of his son, Doug Jr. (who outlived his father by 61 years!), many of his finest films have been preserved, and have been reissued in clean, sharp video versions from Kino, as part of their "Douglas Fairbanks - King Of Hollywood" series.  However, Doug's early comedies are very hard to find - some have literally disintigrated into dust. A few great examples are available on the web (see the FILMS page for links to these sites), and high-quality prints of his pictures are available through many video retailers. Next time you're browsing for tapes to add to your collection, instead of Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Burt Lancaster, or even Mel Gibson, check out the original. Douglas Fairbanks made (and broke!) the mold first.

**Editors update**: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. passed away at the age of 90 on May 7, 2000. He is buried next to his famous father at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. For more information, see http://HollywoodForever.com

"Stars of the Silent Cinema, 1900-1930" book excerpt copyright 1997, Keri Leigh. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission of the author.

Leigh is now writing a biography of Douglas Fairbanks.

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