INTRODUCTION
1. It is perhaps worth noting that many of Keaton’s leading ladies have no character names but are simply identified as “the Girl,” evidence of their basic unimportance.
2. The papers of Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason are housed in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.
3. Constance Talmadge, “The Tragedy of Being Funny,” p. 54.
4. Beth Brown, Making Movies for Women,” p. 342.
5. Norma Talmadge, “How Men Strike Me,” p. 9.
6. “Alice Howell Not Afraid of Getting Bruised,” p. 1046.
7. “Expletives!” p. 29.
8. “Quick Watson, The Needles,” p. 25.
9. “Alice Howell Ascending Comedy Star,” p. 1960.
10. Quoted in Kristen Anderson Wagner, “Have Women a Sense of Humor?: Comedy and Femininity in Early Twentieth-Century Film,” p. 40. The citation she provides for this quote from a fan magazine is incorrect.
11. Steve Massa, Lame Brains & Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and The Forgotten, pp. 99–100.
12. “Alice Howell Not Afraid of Getting Bruised,” p. 1046.
13. Daisy Dean, “News Notes from Movieland,” p. 7.
14. Ibid.
15. “Howell, Alice,” p. 1994.
16. “Alice Howell Overcame Obstacles,” p. 1290.
17. Grady Sutton (1906–1995) was a supporting comedy actor, generally playing effeminate roles, and a perfect foil to W. C. Fields in three films. He worked for George Stevens Sr. in Alice Adams (1935).
18. George Stevens Jr. to Anthony Slide, March 14, 2001.
19. Diana Serra Cary (“Baby Peggy”) to Anthony Slide, November 25, 2000.
20. The program screened twice, on May 29 and May 31, 1977. The other featured comediennes were Billie Rhodes, Fay Tincher, and Mrs. Carter De Haven.
21. Unfortunately, while the comment is much quoted, the source remains unidentified.
1. Genealogical research courtesy of Sheila Benedict.
2. “Alice Howell, a Wholesome Gloom-chaser,” unsourced clipping in the possession of the family.
3. Unless otherwise noted, this and other quotes in the chapter are taken from Anthony Slide, interview with Yvonne Stevens, October 17, 2000.
4. Yvonne Stevens, interview with Anthony Slide, February 12, 2001.
5. Much information concerning Humor Risk can be found at the Marxology website.
6. It has been suggested that Sennett and Smith worked together at the American Biograph Company, but there is no evidence of this.
7. Kalton C. Lahue and Terry Brewer, Kops and Custards: The Legend of Keystone Films, p. 48.
8. Alice Howell, “A Wholesome Gloom-chaser,” unsourced clipping in the possession of the family.
9. Quoted in Steve Massa, Lame Brains & Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and The Forgotten of Silent Comedy, p. 76.
10. “Lunatics and Politics Making at Emerald Studio,” p. 1742.
11. Moving Picture World, September 29, 1917, p. 1994. Some nineteen of Alice Howell’s Keystone films have been identified, but in that the company produced three one-reel comedies a week in 1914, it is obvious that she must have been in many more. Unfortunately, the Mack Sennett Collection in the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not contain documentation for this period.
12. Rob King, The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture, p. 234.
13. Irene Kahn Atkins, oral history with Yvonne Stevens, August 4, 1980.
14. Unsourced clipping, with handwritten date of January 1, 1915, in the author’s possession.
CHAPTER TWO
1. Henry “Pathe” Lehrman was known to many by the nickname of “Suicide,” in that he could place his employees in deathly danger whenever the script demanded it. Billie Ritchie is an example of such an employee. In 1919, he was making a film for Lehrman, possibly A Twilight Baby, when he was attacked by a group of ostriches, with whom he was co-starring. He was seriously injured and the attack in all probability led to his early demise. That same film also had another co-star, Virginia Rappe, Lehrman’s hapless fiancée.
2. Jon Burrows, “Near Broke, But No Tramp: Billie Ritchie, Charlie Chaplin and ‘That Costume,’” p. 249.
3. “She’s a Rough Gal,” p. 133.
4. “The Funniest Woman in Pictures,” p. 11.
5. Mack Sennett, “Exceeding the Speed Limit,” p. 23.
6. This advertisement appeared in both the Moving Picture World and Motion Picture News in their issue of August 5, 1916.
7. Advertising in both the Moving Picture World and Motion Picture News, December 2, 1916.
8. “Alice Howell in New Comedies,” p. 1135.
9. Information taken from a photograph of Jerry Ash in the possession of the family.
10. “Alice Howell without Make-up,” p. 1625.
11. “Alice Howell, L-Ko Comedienne,” p. 1215.
12. Yvonne Stevens, interview with Anthony Slide, February 12, 2001.
13. Yvonne Stevens, interview with Anthony Slide, October 17, 2000.
14. Yvonne Stevens, interview with Anthony Slide, February 12, 2001.
15. In an oral history with Irene Kahn Atkins, dated August 4, 1980, Yvonne Stevens stated that her mother “had the first what they called ‘iron-bound’ contracts with Universal. It was 500 dollars a week, which was a tremendous salary in those days, for 52 weeks a year…. Dick Smith was directing Baby Peggy at that time. He was really stupid, did all the wrong things, always. So he thought, why should Universal and these people be making all this money out of pictures, when we can make our own pictures and go ‘states’ rights.’” The statement is puzzling. If Dick Smith was responsible for his wife’s leaving L-Ko and going elsewhere to make films on a states’ rights basis, then why was neither he nor Alice Howell principals in those companies? The figure of $500 a week, which Yvonne Stevens also mentioned in an oral history with George Turner, seems much too high for the period. Plus, of course, Alice Howell was under contract not to Universal but to L-Ko. Dick Smith worked with Baby Peggy in the 1920s, and perhaps Yvonne Stevens is thinking of the 1924 Universal comedies that her mother made. Even if so, the figure of $500 a week is still much too high, particularly as Alice Howell was never the star of these comedies. As examples of contemporary salaries elsewhere, in 1924, at MGM, Louise Fazenda was earning $687.50 a week, Hank Mann $250 a week, ZaSu Pitts $500 a week, and Norma Shearer $450 a week.
CHAPTER THREE
1. Billy West (1892–1975) began impersonating Chaplin on the vaudeville stage and later on screen. He was often paired with Oliver Hardy in the 1910s, and his career continued intermittently through into the mid-1930s. In 1917, he appeared in a two-reel comedy titled The Slave, which Motion Picture News (January 5, 1918) reported “is the first time in the history of the industry that a comedy has been released without sub-titles.”
2. It was common for films to be released not by one distributor handling the entire United States, but on a so-called states’ rights basis. Different companies would acquire a film for it area of distribution, be it an individual state or a group of states.
3. Kristen Anderson Wagner, “Have Women a Sense of Humor?: Comedy and Femininity in Early Twentieth-Century Film,” p. 41.
4. Exhibitors Herald, May 29, 1920, p. 61.
5. According to the 1921 edition of the Motion Picture News Studio Directory. There is no clear evidence that this personnel was involved in every one of the Alice Howell films.
6. Quoted in Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 166.
7. The reference to “both directors” implies perhaps three directors at work, including Dick Smith, but there is no identification of such directors.
8. Anthony Slide, interview with Yvonne Stevens, October 17, 2000.
9. Anthony Slide, interview with Yvonne Stevens, February 12, 2001.
10. The gay actor J. Warren Kerrigan was seen at home with his mother.
11. Motion Picture News, January 5, 1924, p. 97.
12. “Inside Stuff on Pictures,” p. 19.
13. “Agile Woman in Fun Films,” p. 130.
14. I am grateful to Tjitte de Vries in Rotterdam for alerting me to this suggestion put forward by a professor at the University of Nijmegen.
15. “Universal Announces April Comedies,” p. 1775.
16. The list of players can be found in the Universal Weekly, July 7, 1928, p. 20.
17. “Split after 22 Yrs.,” Variety, June 13, 1933, p. 3.
18. Yvonne Stevens made an important point in her interview with me. “There’s nobody left who remembers these people and how you pronounced their names.” It is “Billy Bevin,” rhyming with “in” and not “Billy Bevan,” rhyming with “an.”
19. Anthony Slide, interview with Yvonne Stevens, October 17, 2000.
20. George Stevens Papers, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, folder 357-f.[4518].
21. Final Report for Distribution under Will, Los Angeles Superior Court, February 21, 1962.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Ashton Stevens was the prototype for the character of Jedediah Leland, played by Joseph Cotten, in Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane.
2. Motion Picture News, September 27, 1924, p. 1624.
3. “Century Follies Girls Group Enlists Yvonne Howell,” p. 22.
4. Alice Howell has an encounter with a trio of bathing beauties in Distilled Love (1920) and tries to emulate their calisthenics.
5. Anthony Slide, interview with Yvonne Stevens, October 17, 2000.
6. Ibid.
7. At the time of her death, it was reported that in the course of her performance as Patsy in Somewhere in Sonora, she was riding with another actress on a buckboard when the horse pulling the wagon was frightened and ran off down a narrow canyon path, “alongside of which was a yawning chasm several thousand feet deep.” Ken Maynard, riding on his trusty steed, Tarzan, raced to the rescue, grabbed the reins, and brought the wagon to a halt.
8. George Turner, Yvonne Stevens Oral History.
9. Alice Howell’s body was cremated and her remains buried in Space 4, Lot 7174 Murmuring Trees. In 2008, daughter Yvonne arranged for the remains to be moved to Space 1, Lot 8034, Morning Light. George Stevens is buried in Space 2, and Yvonne was later buried in Space 3.
10. George Stevens Jr. to Anthony Slide, March 14, 2001.