Company history

Selznick International Pictures was founded in 1935 by producer David O. Selznick and investor Jock Whitney after Selznick left Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and leased a section of the RKO Pictures lot in Culver City, California. The studio itself had been built in 1918–19 by film pioneer Thomas Ince. When Ince died in 1924 the studio was taken over by Cecil B. DeMille. Eventually Pathe took over and then in the 1930s it became part of RKO. In 1957 it would become part of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's company, Desilu.

Selznick leased offices at the studio during the first year or so and at the beginning of 1937 Selznick International Pictures took over the entire lot. The SIP name went up over the entrance of the historic Southern Plantation style administration building and that view of the front of the building became the iconic studio logo seen at the beginning of SIP films. Even though the studio reverted to RKO in the 1940s, Selznick kept offices there for the rest of his life.

Selznick raised the initial funding of US$400,000 in Los Angeles, with half of that amount coming from his brother Myron Selznick, a Hollywood agent, and the other half from MGM production chief Irving Thalberg and his wife actress Norma Shearer. He raised an additional $300,000 from "small" investors in New York, and then the final $2.4 million from Jock Whitney and his family. Whitney himself became chairman of the board, and Selznick president, of the new company.

Because Whitney and his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney also owned Pioneer Pictures, an independent studio they formed in 1933 on facilities rented at the RKO studios, Pioneer was informally merged with Selznick International Pictures in 1936. Selznick International assumed Pioneer's contract to make at least six pictures in the new full-color Technicolor process, of which the Whitneys owned a 15 percent share.

"Unlike his peers in the major studios," wrote film historian Leonard J. Leff, "Selznick produced films as medieval architects built cathedrals: one by one."

Selznick intended to produce a few features each year, a plan which he hoped would allow him to be as picky and careful as he liked and to create the best films possible. He said to his company's board in 1935, "There are only two kinds of merchandise that can be made profitably in this business, either the very cheap pictures or the very expensive pictures." Selznick believed, "there is no alternative open to us but to attempt to compete with the very best."

Although Selznick foresaw a production schedule of six to eight features per year, the studio in fact made only two or three per year, due to Selznick's meticulous attention to detail and protracted writing and editing processes. But in its short life, Selznick International Pictures produced two winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture: Gone with the Wind (1939, co-produced with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and Rebecca (1940), and three nominees, A Star Is Born (1937), Since You Went Away (1944) and Spellbound (1945).

By 1940, Selznick International Pictures was the top-grossing film studio in Hollywood, but without a major studio set-up in which to re-invest his profits, Selznick faced enormous tax problems. That year, to draw down their profits as capital gains, he and the other owners made an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to liquidate Selznick International within three years, which they did by dividing and selling to each other the company's assets. Jock Whitney and his sister Joan Whitney Payson acquired Gone with the Wind, which they resold at a substantial profit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1944. At the time of the final dissolution in 1943, three features were in production or pre-production, although they were released in 1944 and 1945.

To complete his obligation to deliver two more pictures to United Artists, Selznick formed David O. Selznick Productions in 1940 at the same studio location. The new company also took over the old company's contracts with individual directors and actors.

Vanguard Films and Selznick Releasing Organization

After the dissolution of Selznick International, Selznick established Vanguard Films, Inc. in 1943 and Selznick Releasing Organization in 1946. Vanguard was created to continue his productions, while Selznick Releasing was made to distribute output by Vanguard. Previously, Vanguard released through United Artists, of which Vanguard owned one-third of its stock. As with Selznick International, Vanguard was located at the RKO studio.

Elaine Hammerstein (June 16, 1894 – August 13, 1948) was an American silent film and stage actress.

Early life

Elaine Hammerstein was born on June 16, 1894 in Manhattan, the daughter of Jean Allison Hammerstein and opera producer Arthur Hammerstein. She was the granddaughter of Oscar Hammerstein I, the niece of William Hammerstein, and the cousin of Oscar Hammerstein II. She later became the stepdaughter of fellow actress Dorothy Dalton when her father married Dalton in 1924.

Her father once remarked he was more interested in his daughter's career than in his own. When Hammerstein's parents divorced, Jean Allison did not ask for permanent custody of Elaine but instead requested that her daughter be allowed to choose for herself when she reached the age of maturity.

Career

She appeared in her first Broadway production in 1913, at the age of 17. This was a musical entitled High Jinks, which featured actor Snitz Edwards. After school she was given a position in production work by her father. In 1915 she performed on Broadway a second time, in The Trap. In the drama she acted opposite actor Holbrook Blinn.

From this work Hammerstein went into motion pictures. She appeared in 44 movies from 1915 until 1926. Among her film credits are The Girl From Nowhere (1921), The Drums of Jeopardy (1923), Reckless Youth (1922), Broadway Gold (1923), and The Midnight Express (1924), opposite William Haines. With the latter film, the studio tried to promote Hammerstein and Haines as a couple, however, in real life, Haines was a gay man.

Eugene O'Brien (born Louis O'Brien; November 14, 1880 – April 29, 1966) was an American silent film star and stage actor.

Biography

O'Brien was born on November 14, 1880 in Boulder, Colorado.

He studied medicine at the University of Colorado at Boulder but was keener on the stage than becoming a doctor. O'Brien switched to civil engineering under his family's guidance, but his heart was still set on becoming an actor. He moved to New York City and was "discovered" by theatrical impresario Charles Frohman who signed O'Brien to a three-year contract and put him in The Builder of Bridges, which opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre on October 26, 1909, after he had appeared on Broadway in The Rollicking Girl (1905).

O'Brien made his name playing opposite Ethel Barrymore, in a revival of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's play Trelawny of the 'Wells', which opened on New Year's Day, 1911,^[3] at the Empire Theatre.

O'Brien's other Broadway credits included The Country Cousin (1917), Her Husband's Wife (1917), The Angel in the House (1915), The Bargain (1915), A Celebrated Case (1915), The Money Makers (1914), A Woman Killed with Kindness / Granny Maumee (1914), Kitty Mackay (1914), Tainted Philanthropy (1912), The Case of Becky (1912), and The Million (1911).

O'Brien's first film, Essanay Film's The Lieutenant Governor, in which he had the starring role, played in Boulder's Curran Theater in February 1915, giving his family its first opportunity to see him act.^] World Film Corp. chief executive Lewis J. Selznick made O'Brien a screen star, putting him in an adaptation of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. Subsequently, he was leading man opposite some of the leading female stars of the day, including Mary Pickford, Norma Talmadge and Gloria Swanson and became a silent screen matinée idol.

He retired from acting when sound films came in, making his last film, Faithless Lover, in 1928 at age 47. He died on April 29, 1966, in Los Angeles, California. He is interred at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Olive Thomas (born Oliva R. Duffy; October 20, 1894 – September 10, 1920) was an American silent-film actress, art model, and photo model.

Thomas began her career as an illustrator's model in 1914, and moved on to the Ziegfeld Follies the following year. During her time as a Ziegfeld girl, she also appeared in the more risqué show The Midnight Frolic. In 1916, she began a successful career in silent films and would appear in more than 20 features over the course of her four-year film career. That year she also married actor Jack Pickford, the younger brother of fellow silent-film star Mary Pickford.

On September 10, 1920, Thomas died in Paris five days after ingesting her husband's syphilis medication, mercury dichloride, that brought on acute nephritis. Although her death was ruled accidental, news of her hospitalization and subsequent death were the subject of speculation in the press. Thomas' death is considered one of the first major Hollywood scandals.

Early life

Oliva R. Duffy was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, but often claimed her birth name was Oliveretta Elaine Duffy. She was the eldest of three children born to Rena and James Duffy, both of whom were of Irish descent. She had two brothers, James (born 1896) and William (born 1899), both of whom she later helped to secure work in the film industry; after serving in the United States Marine Corps in France during World War I, William worked as a cameraman and James worked as an assistant director. At the time of her death, both brothers were employed by Selznick Productions.

Her father, James Duffy, was a steelworker and died in a work-related accident in 1906. After his death, the family moved to McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, a small mill town. Thomas and her brothers often stayed with their grandparents while their mother Rena worked in a local factory. Rena Duffy later married Harry M. Van Kirk, a worker on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. Their only child together, daughter Harriet, was born in 1914 and died in a car accident in 1931.

Thomas left school at 15 to help support her siblings. She got a job selling gingham at Joseph Horne's department store for $2.75 per week (equivalent to $79.98 in 2021). At 16 in April 1911, she married Bernard Krug Thomas in McKees Rocks. During the two-year marriage, she reportedly worked as a clerk in Kaufmann's, a major department store in Pittsburgh. After their separation in 1913, Thomas moved to New York City and lived with a family member. She later found work in a Harlem department store.

Career

Modeling

In 1914, Thomas entered and subsequently won the "Most Beautiful Girl in New York City" contest held by Howard Chandler Christy, a commercial artist. Winning the contest helped establish her career as an artists' model, and she would later pose for Harrison Fisher, Raphael Kirchner, Penrhyn Stanlaws, and Haskell Coffin. Thomas was featured on many magazine covers, including that of the Saturday Evening Post.

Stage

Fisher wrote a letter of recommendation to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., resulting in Thomas' being hired for the Ziegfeld Follies. However, Thomas later disputed this, claiming she "walked right up and asked for the job". She made her stage debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 on June 21, 1915. Thomas' popularity in the Follies led to her being cast in Ziegfeld's more risqué Midnight Frolic show. The Frolic was staged after hours in the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was primarily a show for famous male patrons who had plenty of money to bestow on the beautiful young female performers. Thomas received expensive gifts from her admirers; it was rumored that German Ambassador Albrecht von Bernstorff had given her a $10,000 string of pearls.

During her time in The Follies, Thomas began an affair with Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld, who was married to actress Billie Burke, had affairs with other Ziegfeld girls, including Lillian Lorraine and Marilyn Miller (who later married Thomas' widower Jack Pickford). Thomas ended the affair with Ziegfeld after he refused to leave Burke to marry her.

Thomas continued modeling while appearing in the Follies. Alberto Vargas, Florenz Ziegfeld’s artist-in-residence who painted many stars of the Ziegfeld stage, immortalized Thomas in the portrait he painted of her from memory after her death and titled it Memory of Olive Thomas or The Lotus Eater (as noted on the label he placed on the back of the completed work). "Lotus Eater" was a reference to Lotus-eaters of Greek mythology. The portrait depicts Thomas nude from the waist up, covering her left breast with her left hand while holding a rose with her right above her upraised face. The painting remained in his personal collection until his death in 1982 and was sold by his estate to a private collector in 1986. Vargas called Thomas "one of the most beautiful brunettes that Ziegfeld ever glorified.

Silent films

In July 1916, Thomas signed with the International Film Company. She made her on-screen debut in Episode 10 of Beatrice Fairfax, a film serial. In 1917, she made her full-length feature debut in A Girl Like That for Paramount Pictures.

That same year, she signed with Triangle Pictures. Shortly after, news broke of her engagement to actor Jack Pickford, whom she had married a year prior. Thomas and Pickford, who was the younger brother of Mary Pickford, kept the marriage secret because Thomas did not want people to think her success in film was due to her association with the Pickfords. Her first film for Triangle, Madcap Madge, was released in June 1917. Thomas' popularity at Triangle grew with performances in Indiscreet Corrine (1917) and Limousine Life (1918). In 1919, she portrayed a French girl who poses as a boy in Toton the Apache. Thomas later said that she felt her work in Toton was "the first real thing I've ever done." She made her final film for Triangle, The Follies Girl, that same year.

After leaving Triangle, Thomas signed with Myron Selznick's Selznick Pictures Company in December 1918 for a salary of $2,500 a week. She hoped for more serious roles, believing that with her husband signed to the same company, she would have more influence. Her first film for Selznick, Upstairs and Down (1919), proved successful and established her image as a "baby vamp". She followed with roles in Love's Prisoner and Out Yonder, both in 1919. In 1920's The Flapper, Thomas played a teenage schoolgirl who yearns for excitement beyond her small Florida town. Thomas was the first actress to portray a lead character who was a flapper, and the film was the first of its kind to portray the flapper lifestyle. Frances Marion, who wrote the scenario, was responsible for bringing the term into the American vernacular. The Flapper proved to be popular and became one of Thomas' most successful films. On October 4, 1920, Thomas' final film, Everybody's Sweetheart, was released.

Owen Moore (12 December 1886– 9 June 1939) was an Irish-born American actor, appearing in more than 279 movies spanning from 1908 to 1937.

Early life and career

Moore was born in Fordstown Crossroads, County Meath, Ireland. Along with his parents, John and Rose Anna Moore, brothers Tom, Matt, and Joe, and sister Mary, he emigrated to the United States as a steerage passenger on board the S.S. Anchoria. The Moore family were inspected on Ellis Island in May 1896 and settled in the Toledo, Ohio area. Moore and his siblings went on to successful careers in motion pictures in Hollywood, California.

While working at D. W. Griffith's Biograph Studios, Moore met a young Canadian actress named Gladys Smith, whom he married on January 7, 1911. Their marriage was kept secret at first because of the strong opposition of her mother. However, Smith soon overshadowed her husband under her stage name, Mary Pickford. In 1912, he signed on with Victor Studios, co-starring in a number of their films with studio owner/actress Florence Lawrence.

Pickford left Biograph Studios to join the Independent Moving Pictures (IMP) to replace their star, Florence Lawrence. Carl Laemmle, the owner of IMP (IMP later merged into Universal Studios), agreed to sign Moore as part of the deal. This humiliation, together with his wife's meteoric rise to fame, drastically affected Moore, and alcohol became a problem that led to violent behavior and his physically abusing Pickford. In 1916, Pickford met actor Douglas Fairbanks. In 1920, Pickford filed for divorce from Moore when she agreed to his demand of $100,000 settlement. Pickford and Fairbanks married days later.

Moore appeared in many successful films for Lewis J. Selznick (father of producer David O. Selznick and agent Myron Selznick), in the late teens and early 1920s. He was a popular star at Selznick Pictures along with Olive Thomas, Elaine Hammerstein, Eugene O'Brien and Conway Tearle. He also appeared in films for his own production company as well as Goldwyn and Triangle.

Moore married a second time to silent film actress, Katherine Perry, in 1921. With the advent of sound film, Moore's career declined, and he became a supporting actor for newer stars. He competed, as the third lead, with Cary Grant and Noah Beery, Sr. for the attentions of Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, Paramount's most lucrative film of 1933. His last film appearance was as a movie director in the 1937 drama A Star Is Born, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March – ironically a movie about a former film star who turned to alcohol, much like himself at that time.

Elsie Janis (born Elsie Bierbower, March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an American actress of stage and screen, singer, songwriter, screenwriter and radio announcer. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as "the sweetheart of the AEF" (American Expeditionary Force).

Early life

Elsie Bierbower was born in Marion, Ohio, the daughter of Josephine Janis and John Eleazer Bierbower. She had a brother, Percy John.

Stage

Bierbower first took to the stage at age 2. By age 11, she was a headliner on the vaudeville circuit, performing under the name Little Elsie. As she matured, using the stage name Elsie Janis, she began perfecting her comedic skills.

Acclaimed by American and British critics, Janis was a headliner on Broadway and London. On Broadway, she starred in a number of successful shows, including The Vanderbilt Cup (1906), The Hoyden (1907), The Slim Princess (1911), and The Century Girl (1916).

Elsie performed at the grand opening of the Brown Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky on October 5, 1925.

Film, screenwriting and music

Janis also enjoyed a career as a Hollywood actress, screenwriter, production manager and composer. She was co-credited alongside Gene Markey for writing the original story for Close Harmony (1929) and as composer and production manager for Paramount on Parade (1930). She and director Edmund Goulding wrote the song "Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere" for Gloria Swanson for her talkie debut film The Trespasser (1929). Janis's song "Oh, Give Me Time for Tenderness" was featured in the Bette Davis movie Dark Victory (1939), also directed by Goulding.

Radio announcer

In 1934, Janis became the first female announcer on the NBC radio network.

World War I

Janis advocated for British and American soldiers fighting in World War I. She raised funds for Liberty Bonds. Accompanied by her mother, Janis also took her act on the road, entertaining troops stationed near the front lines – one of the first popular American artists to do so in a war fought on foreign soil. Ten days after the armistice, she recorded for HMV several numbers from her revue Hullo, America, including "Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl". She wrote about her wartime experiences in The Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces (published in 1919), and recreated these in Behind the Lines, a 1926 Vitaphone musical short.