Hollywood - The Weird, Wonderful and Unknown, Part 1
Hollywood is almost a world of itself. Strange things happen within it. But we must remember that Hollywood is the land of humans too, even if they are a little unusual. Then again, don't we all have our quirks?
In this series, I look at some of the weird and unusual facts about cinema, Hollywood and movie stars.
Ben Turpin (1869-1940)
A silent movie phenomenon. Like his mentor, Charlie Chaplin, he made a character that he carried through his career. It was the cross-eyed "Happy Hooligan", but after playing the character continuously for consecutive days, the strain was too much for his eyes and they never uncrossed. Not one for taking the negative, he was able to live out his career with that character, just like Chaplin's "The Tramp". His appearance was so iconic that he has his eyes insured in case they ever became uncrossed. This was for $25,000 at the time, which equates to almost $500,00 today. One later story claimed it was $100,000 ($1.65million today).
Fred Karno (1866-1941)
Probably the most influential man in acting that you don't know, was a vaudeville producer and slapstick genius in Britain's Victorian Music Hall scene. He is credited for popularising the infamous and classic pie-in-the-face gag. At his height, Karno sent some of his troupe to America at the turn of the century, but he didn't send his star, Sydney Chaplin. The new fad of Motion Pictures was stealing Carnegie Hall stars and Karno was one of the experienced theatre men who didn't think the new medium would last, but he didn't want to risk his star. So Sydney's brother Charles was sent among this new troupe, with his understudy Arthur Stanley Jefferson. Both would soon be taken in by Cinema, and become world known names. Charles could go on to be known as Charlie and build an empire that changed cinema forever, while Arthur would take on a stage name and pair up with Norvell Hardy, creating the iconic duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Sadly, Karno would lose his fortune, reclaim it and lose it again. He died in 1941, relatively unknown and in nowhere near the glamour he had known.
Natural and Man-made Law
It is well known that Cinema suspends the laws of Physics, Chemistry and man-made laws. This is for convenience, audience engagement and suspension of disbelief. It is only recently that we have started seeing exterior shots in space where there is no sound (Interstellar, 2014). Ship captains still marry people (this is a Disney trope), and lightning is always accompanied by instantaneous thunder.
One major action device is cars and other road vehicles jumping gaps in bridges etc.. This wouldn't happen in reality because gravity can't be suspended. Even at speed, a vehicle would fall immediately. But frankly, where's the fun in keeping things real? When your main character is a detective and they are allowed to investigate a crime where a family member or their partner on the force is a suspect, why would the director say "due to conflict of interest, this character will now act professionally and step away from the case", unless they then go on to investigate it privately? No fun there!
Lost Careers
In the early days of cinema, film was made of silver nitrate. This is highly flammable and delicate, decaying if not kept well. Also, films were not kept for prosperity. With nothing like the digital storage we have today, films would often be shot, shown for a short period and the film would be reused. Between these factors and several studio vault fires (most famously the 1965 MGM Vault 7 fire), many careers are preserved predominantly in documented records, contracts and posters.
Lon Chaney (1883-1930) starred in 160 films in his career, of which only approximately one third survived (53) and most are only in part. Chaney died just before production for 1931's Dracula started, a role he was due to take on. Bela Lugosi would take over. A true classic could have been Chaney's best work.
Theda Bara (1885 - 1955) was one of the silent era stars whose films are almost entirely lost. Most were burned in a Fox Studio vault fire in 1937. She made 43 films in 12 years from 1914 and 1926. She was cinema's golden girl for several years and cinema's first true sex symbol. One of her biggest films, Cleopatra (1917), was considered to obscene to be shown after its initial release so it was banned, because of the risque outfits Bara word. This film now only exists in stills and 1 minute of the opening. Copies of six of her films still exist, along with production stills of most and partial clips of 5 others of her works. A copy of her first film The Stain (1914) was found in the 1990s, and East Lynne (1916) in found 1971.
The Blacklist
The Hollywood Blacklist was the original "Cancel Culture" movement. From the Great Depression through to the late 1950's, although there is still some scrutiny about it to this day. The Blacklist was the U.S. Government and FBI's crackdown on Communism in Hollywood. Communism's popularity rose in the build up to thee Second World War across the globe, and the American's feared it. They formed a committee called "The House Committee of Un-American Activites" that investigated people in the entertainment industry, and over a period of 20 years built a huge list of individuals who had any sort of association with Communism. This could be actual active interest through to having a relative who was related to someone or associated with someone with links to Communism (or so they believed).
The list caused hundreds to lose work or credit for work, and in 1947 the "Hollywood Ten" - a group of screenwriters and directors - were taken to court. They had refused to answer questions in front of the Committee, and were cited with contempt, found guilty and served up to a year in prison each. The list grew, theatres would banned films and studios would cease contracts. All because government sanctions officials had reason to believe certain individuals were potentially feed Communist influences into the film, radio and TV industries. Initially, the list was small - predominantly screenwriters and directors - but by 1950 some huge names were on the list. The "Red Channels List" included Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin and Richard Attenborough.
People started to really defy the list in the 1950's, but it was slow. It wasn't until the late 1950's and into the 60's that the list was properly starting to breakdown. Gradually studios started re-printing credits for films blacklisted or involving blacklisted people, and this happened into the 21st century, The Writer's Guild worked hard to make sure people who worked uncredited throughout this period got their due credit.
However, not everyone was clean. Those that refused to co-operate with the Committee never really recovered. Many lost their careers over it, some made much later comebacks but never hit the same heights, and others remained blacklisted until their deaths. There is no official date to the blacklisting stopping (Lester Cole, a member of the Hollywood Ten was never officially un-blacklisted and died in 1985), but the 1960's saw the industry fight back.
Walter Bernstein was the last man on the Blacklist to die. He passed away on 22 January 2021, at 101. Marsha Hunt passed away on 7 September 2022 at 104. She was the oldest surviving Blacklisted person. Norma Barzman was the last surviving member on the list. She passed away on 17 December 2023, aged 103.
Sources and Disclaimer -
I am not an expert, and nor do I claim to be. I gather my information and images from a range of sources including, but not limited to Google Searches, Books (Fred Karno: The Legend Behind the Laughter by David Crump, In Search of Lost Films by Phil Hall, The World Film Encyclopedia 1933, The Encyclopedia of Movie Stars 1985), Wikipedia, IMDB, Youtube clip of Be Natural
Comments