From the Yorkshire Wolds to the Hollywood Hills
Being an author means I spend an awful lot of time in my writing shed on my own. I was therefore thrilled when I was invited to do a talk to a local women’s group about my books and the inspiration behind them. I called the talk ‘From the Yorkshire Wolds to the Hollywood Hills’ as that pretty much sums up what I do in writing about the Golden Age of Hollywood from rural East Yorkshire.
Preparing the talk brought a lot of threads together and made me recognise the incredible women in the film business who have inspired me. I’m going to feature one of these (who haven’t yet found their way into a book yet) today – Frances Marion.
Frances Marion was a screenwriting legend. She inspired me when I was writing Marie Calvez in The Hollywood Governess. Frances’ career was a lot less troubled than Marie’s but she was my template for a female screenwriter in the 1930s.
Frances was born in San Francesco and arrived in Hollywood in 1914 when the fledgling film industry was still finding its feet. She’d been working as artist and met silent screen legend, Mary Pickford to show her poster art. A year later Frances had realised her vocation was writing. She wrote scenarios for many of Pickford most famous films. Frances and Mary became such good friends that they even honeymooned together although Frances was no fan of Mary’s husband, Douglas Fairbanks who she described as “a man of superficial attachments and an insatiable appetite for praise”.
During the First World War she worked as a journalist, travelling to Europe to report on women’s contributions to the war effort. Back in America after the war, she successfully transitioned to talkies and became a key writer at MGM where she worked closely with producers, Samuel Goldwyn and Irving Thalberg. She had a talent for writing scripts which shone a spotlight on the talents of the actors and is often credited with defining the careers of Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford and Marion Davies. She directed two films and was the first screenwriter to win two Oscars.
She preferred to write at home. I love this quote from her about working conditions at the studios, “how can they expect a poor scenario writer to plunge into deep and silent study when Rome is burning on the lot across the street.” (Photoplay 1917). It makes me grateful for the peace of my writing shed but I just wish I looked as glamorous as her when I’m writing!