Colleen Moore
Biography, Images
and Notes
The Triangle Film Corporation had been aimed at exhibition prestige pictures from three of the most famous directors of the time: Thomas Ince (famous for his westerns), D.W. Griffith (famous for his epics and dramas), and Mack Sennett (famous for his slapstick comedies). The films would have been shown in a chain of Triangle film palaces. Besides the directors, Triangle had hired some of the best-known talent in the industry. As a result, the organization was over-extended. Griffith was the first of the three sides f the Triangle to depart the arrangement. He took much of his original troupe with him overseas to England. The war in Europe had been raging, and he would make Hearts of the World at the suggestion of the British War Office while there. Colleen’s contract, however, had been with Triangle, and not with Griffith, so she was left behind. Triangle had continued production, but Colleen was generally seen as Griffith’s “find,” and so for her work had trailed off. She would write that she learned about her situation when the yellow envelope her paycheck typically arrived in was replaced by a blue one. Inside was a letter that began “We regret to have to dispense with your artistic services,” a sentence that both elated her for recognizing her services as artistic, and struck fear in her heart by telling her those services for Triangle would soon end.
Her mother had already returned east; she occupied her house with her Grandmother Kelley, who told her to keep the news to herself. The weather in California agreed with her grandmother, and she was as loathe to return to Florida as Colleen was. Back at the studio lot, Frank Woods told her that the contract would be honored, but with the exception of a few films still in production there would be little for Colleen to do. Understanding this, Coleen made the rounds of the various Los Angeles studios, looking for parts. Her work had been appreciated by the press, and she landed a part in a Bluebird Photoplay production titled Julio Sandoval.
Bluebird Photoplays were, in fact, productions of the Universal Film manufacturing Company, Carl Laemmle’s company. Universal had been formed from the merger of several companies, and each of those companies continued production as its own unit within the overall organization. Each specialized in a specific genre. The idea was that Universal was presenting itself as a distributor of films, and that those films were chosen from the best producers. Bluebird Photoplays was a creation of Laemmle’s, intended to produce the organizations prestige productions. Bluebirds, it was hoped, would become synonymous with quality. Exhibitors looking to book films for their houses would often look for one quality production to anchor the rest of the program they booked. Bluebirds were to fill that role. Their advertising the motion picture trade journals featured quality graphic artwork by illustrator Burton Rice, a Chicagoan; that work would be supplemented by Ethyl Rundquist while Rice was away in Europe.
Colleen secured a five-week leave of absence from her contract to appear in Julio Sandoval, and perhaps return east to visit her family afterwards.
Monroe Salisbury would be the star of the film, which was retitled The Savage; he was a big man who looked as rugged as the outdoors. The film was to be made in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, near Big Bear Lake. Salisbury would play Julio Sandoval, a feral half-breed…. This was in a time where film characters of mixed heritage often inherited the worst stereotypical characteristics of the other half of their background (the first half being white, as most of the actors playing these characters were white). Ruth Clifford played Marie Louise, a local girl who had gone to school in the big city and has returned engaged to Captain McKeever of the Mounted Police. Being a half-breed, Julio naturally desires the sophisticated, virginal Marie. This makes Lizette, played by Colleen, jealous. She loves Julio, and like him she is also a half-breed, her emotions naturally ruling her actions. Julio kidnaps Marie but is struck ill. Marie nurses him back to health. Lizette realizes that Julio went missing at the same time and offers herself to an outlaw if he will kill Julio. When the town realizes Marie is missing, a posse is organized to rescue her. When found, she defends Julio, claiming he helped her when she was lost. Back in town, Marie discovers that Captain McKeever has been kidnapped. Julio comes to the rescue but is killed in the effort by the outlaw Lizette offered herself to.
The work on the film had taken less than two weeks, and rather than visit her family she returned to the Triangle lot. Eli Clark Bidwell was managing the Griffith’s productions after Griffith’s departure, while Ince had largely taken overall leadership. Bidwell was in almost daily contact with Griffith’s lawyer Branzhaf in New York. Bidwell wrote him: “What shall we do about little Colleen Moore? She is a little girl Mr. Griffith ‘found’ in Chicago about the first of the year and sent out here. She has been drawing $50.00 per week ever since the studio closed, except for two weeks just recently when she worked in a picture for the Universal ‘Bluebird’….”
A condition her family had dictated of her staying in California was that Colleen had to make a living for herself. Her family would not pay for her, she had to be a working actress. So, Colleen became a regular visitor to Biswell’s office, demanding her pay for the three weeks she had been back. That $150 would keep her in California. She was persistent enough that by the end of the year, she had been paid everything she was owed in full.
The Polyscope studio had been established by William Selig, who had already been a big name in American motion pictures before he set out to establish a permanent studio in California. Prior to this, the studios had had sent expeditionary ventures out west, looking for new scenery and to extend the short shooting season of the east coast. Films had been shot on the west coast for years, mainly along the lines of short actualities (short documentary films of locations or events often shown with newsreels), the most famous perhaps being the ride down Market Street in San Francisco in the days before the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Selig saw the potential of California’s moderate climate, and the potential for a long shooting season, and so established two full studios in California, adding their output to the production schedule of his Chicago plant. Soon, other studios were following suit.
Selig financed his own films, rather than looking for funds from other sources, which was increasingly putting him at a disadvantage with his competitors. A pioneer of the popular serial film format, he had produced none after his initial success. He was an advocate of shorts: films of about twenty minutes in length. He felt that features were good for the occasional big story, but that they were a fad. Any story worth telling could be told in 2 reels. Anything more was just padding.
Unfortunately, audiences disagreed. Europeans pioneered feature-length films, and the features were increasing popular with audiences. Selig reluctantly went into longer films. One of the first of these would be A Hoosier Romance to be directed by Colin Campbell. In looking for her next role, Colleen had been directed to Campbell. A lucky break for her, as she would tell it. Campbell would ask her, “Are you related to Lib Howey?”
“Yes, she’s my aunt,” Colleen said.
Colin nodded and said, “I thought so, you have the job.”
That was in June of 1918. In the film, based on the poem by James Whitcomb Riley, Colleen played Patience Thompson, a long-suffering girl who lives with her greedy father, Jeff Thompson (played by Thomas Jefferson, a tongue-twister if ever there was one), on their farm in Indiana. When John (Harry McCoy) asks Patience to marry him, her father is enraged. He plots to marry her off to an old but wealthy widower (Frank Hayes) to shore up the family fortune. With the help of a kindly squire and his wife, John hides in the Thompson home on the day of Patient’s wedding. Walking down the aisle, Patience suddenly bolts from the room and seems to flee the scene on a horse. While the search is on for the runaway bride, Patience comes out of her hiding place so that she and John marry.
Her performance was well-received: Colleen was a wholesome young personality playing a wholesome young part. The role, along with her previous roles, acted to cement her in the popular imagination as the perpetual lady in distress, always in need of saving. It was a common role for a woman to play in the motion pictures at the time, but the times were rapidly changing.
As before, Colleen’s work was appreciated, and it was decided she would appear in another film based on one of James Whitcomb Riley’s best-known stories, Little Orphant Annie. It was a poem that had captured the imagination of readers for years, and enjoyed an renewed popularity with the publication of Riley’s Where is Mary Alice Smith, his account of the girl brought to his childhood home to care for his family. Selig’s Chicago office had arranged a contract for Colleen to play the part. Her grandmother had given her advice that would server her will throughout her career… if she was offered $50 for a job, she should ask for double, the idea being that nobody would offer the maximum they could afford in their first bid. They would always low-ball her.
With Selig, Colleen had been under the impression that she was to be paid $150 per week. However, the contract that Selig’s Los Angeles manager, James L. McGee had shown her was for $125. A misunderstanding, McGee insisted. Since Colleen was still a minor, the corrected contract had to be mailed off to Colleen’s mother for her signature. Later, Colleen discovered the contract sent to Agnes had been for $125 a week without the promised correction. Colleen had been cheated out of $25. It was a bad sign, as there had been stories about the faltering financial stability of Selig Polyscope.
Little Orphant Annie was in production from July to August 1918. Originally written as a straightforward adaptation of the poem, it was expanded to add elements from Where is Mary Alice Smith. The story would go through numerous revisions, sometime set during the Civil War (as was the original story) and sometimes a then-contemporary story set during the war in Europe. Annie is an orphan suffering from the trauma of the loss of her mother years before, and then the trauma of being taken in by n abusive uncle. She is saved from the abusive uncle by Big Dave (Thomas Santschi), who becomes her hero, and goes to live with the Goode family. Already unstable from her numerous traumas, she is written as an unbalanced young girl who deals with her traumas by turning her fantasies of goblins and creatures into stories to entertain the children of her new family.
When the story is put on film, the more disturbing aspects of the story—of Annie’s post-traumatic stress disorder—are played down. Her visions are amusing, achiever by camera effects and special makeup. She longs to be reunited wit her deceased mother, and when her abusive uncle tells her that Big Dave, her hero who has gone off to war has died. There were multiple endings to the film: on the happy ending, she falls ill and dies of a broken heart, only to awaken and discover it was all a and dream. Dave is alive, returned from war, and they are reunited. In the sad ending, Annie falls ill and dies of a broken heart in the company of her new family. In heaven, she is reunited with her hero, now a knight, and her mother.
The film helped launch Colleen’s career: a special effect spectacular, it relied heavily on Colleen’s ability to embody the poor orphan. It was not the first time Colleen would play a beloved character in a film adaptation of a literary work. There had been a plan to adapt James Whitcomb Riley’s works to film, and Colleen was hopeful she would e the female lead in all of them writing to William Selig that she had read Riley’s works, and felt an affinity with his characters. Unfortunately, like Triangle, Selig Polyscope’s financial problems proved insurmountable. As hopeful as she had been, she found herself once again beating the streets looking for work.