Frances Marion

Not to be confused with Francis Marion.

Frances Marion
Frances Marion in 1918
Born	Marion Benson Owens (1888-11-18)November 18, 1888 San Francisco, U.S.
Died	May 12, 1973(1973-05-12) (aged 84) Los Angeles, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Author, journalist, screenwriter
Years active	1912–1972
Spouse(s)	Fred C. Thomson (1919–1928) George W. Hill (1930–1933)

Frances Marion (November 18, 1888 – May 12, 1973) was an American journalist, author, film director and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos. She was the first writer to win two Academy Awards.

Early life

Marion was born Marion Benson Owens in San Francisco, California. Her parents divorced when she was ten, and she lived with her mother. She dropped out of school at age twelve, after having been caught drawing a cartoon strip of her teacher. She then transferred to a school in San Mateo, and then to art school in San Francisco when she was sixteen years old. This school was destroyed by an earthquake in 1906.

Career

Marion worked as a journalist and served overseas as a combat correspondent during World War I. She documented women's contribution to the war effort on the front lines, and became the first woman to cross the Rhine after the armistice. On her return home, she moved to Los Angeles and was hired as a writing assistant, an actress and general assistant by "Lois Weber Productions", a film company owned and operated by pioneer female film director Lois Weber. She could have been an actor, but preferred work behind the camera. She learned screenwriting from Weber, and wrote one screenplay for her, but then burned it.

As "Frances Marion", she wrote many scripts for actress/filmmaker Mary Pickford, including Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and The Poor Little Rich Girl, as well as scripts for numerous other successful films of the 1920s and 1930s. During this time, she earned a salary of $50,000 per year which was unheard of at the time. Marion went to New York for her job, and her husband declined to live with her and they divorced. She became the first female to win an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1930 for the film The Big House, she received the Academy Award for Best Story for The Champ in 1932, both featuring Wallace Beery, and co-wrote Min and Bill starring her friend Marie Dressler and Beery in 1930. She was credited with writing 300 scripts and over 130 produced films. She directed and occasionally appeared in some of Mary Pickford's early movies.

Personal life

Min and Bill (1930)

Marion's father Len D. Owens built the Aetna Springs resort in Aetna Springs, California in the 1870s. After her success in Hollywood, she often visited the resort using it as a retreat and drew several actors to the resort with her.

Marion was married four times, first to Wesley de Lappe, and later to Robert Pike, both prior to changing her name. In 1919, she wed Fred Thomson, who co-starred with Mary Pickford in The Love Light in 1921. She was such close friends with Mary Pickford, that they honeymooned together when Mary married Douglas Fairbanks and Frances married Fred. After Thomson's unexpected death from a leg wound in 1928, she married director George W. Hill in 1930, but that marriage ended in divorce in 1933. She had two sons—Frederick C. Thomson and Richard Thomson (adopted). Fred earned a PhD in English at Yale, taught there and later joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina. He became an editor of the writings of George Eliot, publishing editions of Felix Holt, the Radical in 1980 and later.

Later years and death

For many years she was under contract to MGM Studios, but, independently wealthy, she left Hollywood in 1946 to devote more time to writing stage plays and novels.

Frances Marion published a memoir Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood in 1972. Marion died the following year of a ruptured aneurysm in Los Angeles.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Featured Stars	Notes
1912	The New York Hat	Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish	Contributing writer
1915	Camille	Clara Kimball Young, Paul Capellani, Robert Cummings	Scenario
	A Girl of Yesterday	Mary Pickford, Frances Marion, Glenn L. Martin	actress
1916	The Gilded Cage	Alice Brady, Montagu Love, Alec B. Francis	scenarist/writer
1917	The Little Princess	Katherine Griffith, Mary Pickford, Norman Kerry, ZaSu Pitts, Theodore Roberts	Writer
	Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm	Mary Pickford, Eugene O'Brien	Writer
	The Poor Little Rich Girl	Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley, Gladys Fairbanks	Writer
1918	Stella Maris	Mary Pickford	Photoplay
	How Could You, Jean?	Mary Pickford	Scenario
	M'Liss	Mary Pickford	Writer
	Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley	Mary Pickford, William Scott, Kate Price	Writer
1919	The Cinema Murder	Marion Davies, Eulalie Jensen, Anders Randolf, Reginald Barlow	Scenario
	Anne of Green Gables	Mary Miles Minter	Writer
1920	Pollyanna	Mary Pickford	Adaptation
	The Flapper	Olive Thomas, Warren Cook	Screenplay, story
	The Restless Sex	Marion Davies, Ralph Kellard	Writer
1921	The Love Light	Mary Pickford, Evelyn Dumo	Director, story (uncredited)
1922	The Toll of the Sea	Anna May Wong, Kenneth Harlan, Beatrice Bentley	Scenario (uncredited), story
1923	The Famous Mrs. Fair	Myrtle Stedman, Huntley Gordon	Adaptation, screenplay
1924	Secrets	Norma Talmadge	Adaptation
	Cytherea	Alma Rubens, Constance Bennett, Norman Kerry, Lewis Stone, Irene Rich	Adaptation
	The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln	George A. Billing, Ruth Clifford, George K. Arthur, Louise Fazenda	Story, screenplay
1925	Stella Dallas	Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Lois Moran	Adaptation
	A Thief in Paradise	Doris Kenyon, Ronald Colman, Aileen Pringle	Adaptation
	Thank You	Alec B. Francis, Jacqueline Logan	Writer
	Lightnin'	Jay Hunt, Wallace MacDonald	Writer
1926	The Scarlet Letter	Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson	Adaptation, scenario, titles
	The Winning of Barbara Worth	Ronald Colman, Vilma Bánky	Adaptation
	Son of the Sheik	Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, Montagu Love, Karl Dane, George Fawcett	Adaptation
1927	The Red Mill	Marion Davies	Adaptation, screenplay
	Love	John Gilbert, Greta Garbo	Continuity
	Madame Pompadour	Dorothy Gish	Writer
1928	The Wind	Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Montagu Love, Dorothy Cumming	Scenario
	The Awakening	Vilma Bánky, Walter Byron	Story
	Bringing Up Father	J. Farrell MacDonald, Polly Moran, Marie Dressler	Writer
1929	Their Own Desire	Norma Shearer, Belle Bennett, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery, Helene Millard	Screenplay
1930	Min and Bill	Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery	Dialogue, scenario
	The Big House	Robert Montgomery, Wallace Beery, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone	Dialogue, story Won the Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
	Good News	Mary Lawlor, Stanley Smith	Scenario
	The Rouge Song	Lawrence Tibbett, Catherine Dale Owen	Writer
	Anna Christie	Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, Marie Dressler	Writer
1931	Anna Christie	Greta Garbo, Theo Shall, Hans Junkermann	Adaptation
	The Secret Six	Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, John Mack Brown, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Ralph Bellamy, Marjorie Rambeau	Dialogue, screenplay
	The Champ	Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates	Story Won the Academy Award for Best Story
1932	Blondie of the Follies	Marion Davies, Robert Montgomery, Billie Dove	Screenplay, story
	Emma	Marie Dressler, Richard Cromwell, Jean Hersholt, Myrna Loy	Story
1933	Peg o' My Heart	Marion Davies, Onslow Stevens, J. Farrell MacDonald	Adaptation
	Dinner at Eight	Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Billie Burke	Screenplay
	The Prizefighter and the Lady	Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Walter Huston, Primo Carnera, Jack Dempsey	Story Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story
	Going Hollywood	Marion Davies, Bing Crosby, Fifi D'Orsay, Stuart Erwin	Story (uncredited)
	Secrets	Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard	Writer
1936	Camille	Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore	Screenplay
	Riffraff	Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy	Screenplay, story
	Poor Little Rich Girl	Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Jack Haley, Gloria Stuart, Michael Whalen, Claude Gillingwater	Writer
1937	Knight Without Armour	Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat	Adaptation
	Love from a Stranger	Ann Harding, Basil Rathbone	Adaption
1940	Green Hell	Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Vincent Price, Joan Bennett, Alan Hale, Sr., George Sanders, John Howard	Original story, screenplay

Published works

• Minnie Flynn. NY: Boni and Liveright, 1925
• The Secret Six. NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1931 [novelization of her own screenplay]
• Valley People. NY: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1935
• How to Write and Sell Film Stories. NY: Covici-Friede, 1937
• Molly, Bless Her. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1937
• Westward The Dream. Garden City NY: Doubleday and Company, 1948
• The Passions of Linda Lane. NY: Diversey Publications, 1949 [paperback; revised edition of Minnie Flynn]
• The Powder Keg. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953
• Off With Their Heads!: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood. NY: The Macmillan Company, 1972 [memoir]

Bibliography

• Beauchamp, C. Marion, Frances. American National Biography Online, February 2000.
• Beauchamp, Cari (1997). Without lying down: Frances Marion and the powerful women of early Hollywood. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21492-7.

External links

• Frances Marion at IMDb
• Frances Marion at the TCM Movie Database
• Frances Marion at the Women Film Pioneers Project
• Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood at IMDb