The Great Movie Stars [antikvár]

The stats and the systemThe first film players worked on both sides of the camera and were uncredited; but as some of them became famiUar to audiences there was a buzz of recognition. Most nickelodeons and variety halls hired their films from the same film - exchanges which relied in turn on the same film suppliers. It wasn't long before all these businessmen began to appreciate that a familiar face could be a definite asset.Already there were film studios - in sheds or properties that had been warehouses -turning out sometimes several films a week. In 1908 Edison was in The Bronx and Vitagraph in Flatbush; Biograph, probably the oldest company, was on 14th Street in New York. SeUg and Essanay were in Chicago. These five companies and five others formed, in 1909, the Motion Picture Patents Co., claiming the exclusive right to photograph, print and develop motion pictures. Edison himself was involved and the patent was quite legal. But when they attempted to control the exchanges and nickelodeons they came up against opposition from the entrepreneurs who were making huge fortunes from distribution, like Carl Laemmle of the Laemmle Film Service. He fought the monopoly in court and out- by ridicule in the trade press and by producing his own movies (the first was a one-reel Hiawaiba). For his Independent Motion Picture Co. (IMP) he was determined to get one of the best - known personalities in pictures, 'The Biograph Girl.'This lady had already been identified as Florence Lawrence. She and her husband, Harry Salter, had started with Vitagraph and had moved on to D. W. Griifith's Biograph when she was offered an extra $ioa-week-to $25. By 1910 she wassufficiently popular for Laemmle to offer her the violently excessive sum of $1,000 a week. Then she vanished. Laemmle planted a story in the press to the effect that she had been run down and killed by a trolley car in St Louis, and then asserted in an advert in the trade press that the story was an invention of his enemies. Miss Lawrence appeared in St Louis to prove that she was alive - and was mobbed. All of this focused much attention on her and on IMP, proving not only the vast popularity of film -players but underlining their value as commercial properties.Miss Lawrence the following year went to the Lubin Co., one of the patents group, where she teamed with Arthur Johnson for some popular comedies. Fame didn't last. In the 20s she was in Britain working in minor parts when Marion Davies heard of her plight and sent her the fare to come to Hollywood, plus the offer of a small part in a movie. She became an extra and committed suicide in 1958, completely forgotten. Her rival, Florence Turner 'The Vitagraph Girl', fared Uttle better. When her career began to wane around 1912 she went to Britain with Vitagraph co-star Larry Trimble and they formed their own company in conjunction with Cecil M. Hepworth and were successful for a while. By 1924 her parts were few and small. She returned to the US and played a few more brief roles, such as Buster Keaton's mother in College (27).Mary Pickford was on the scene by 1909, and there were other melting heroines like Blanche Sweet, Clara Kimball Young and Norma Talmadge; romantic heroes like Francis X. Bushman and Maurice Costello; cowboy stars Tom Mix, Broncho Billy Anderson and William S. Hart; and the comedy team of Flora Finch and John5