MARY MURILLO, EARLY ANGLO LATINA SCENARIST

The creative presence of Latina women in early film production should not come as a surprise to students of film. Film scholars such as Anthony Slide (Early Women Directors), Ally Acker (Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema) and others have written about the predominence of women in early film production. The early participation of immigrant, African-American, and Asian-American women has been demonstrated by these authors.

Similer traces have been left by Latinas. Several Mexican/Latina actresses played leading roles in pre-1920 American films, including Myrtle González and Beatriz Michelena according to Geoffrey Bell and Antonio Ríos-Bustamante “Latino Participation in the Hollywood Film Industry”; and “Latino Hollywood.” Hundreds more left their impression as bit players, extras, and through off-screen work in the industry.

Women played a notable role in early screenwriting as authors, scenarists, and adaptors. A few great screenwriter directors such as Lois Weber, Frances Marion, Anita Loos, and June Mathis have begun to receive appropriate recognition from scholars. Numerous other women, including Latinas, made their mark alongside these great pioneers, not least among them was Mary Murillo.^[1]

Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England in the late nineteenth century, Mary was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in London according to biographical entries (Motion Picture Directory 1918 224) Most probably a Roman Catholic, Murillo appears to have been of either Latin-American or Spanish descent, and she reflects the long, interesting, but little documented history of Latin Americans and Spaniards in Britain.^[2]

Somehow the young Murillo developed theatrical aptitudes. By 1911 Mary Murillo was touring with the Old English Comedy Company. In 1911, when the Comedy Company toured the US, she appeared in two minor roles in New York City. Leading actresss Anne Russell was billed as the star of the productions. Mary appeared in She Stoops to Conquer, in which she had bottom billing as Dolly, and The Rivals, in which she had bottom billing as Lucy.^[3] By 1914 Mary, like many young theater players, had made the shift from stage to screen as a screen writer for the dramatic film, Strand of Blond Hair. In 1915 she wrote the scenario and co-directed, with Oscar C. La Apfel, The Little Minister produced by Eastern Films in Newport, Rhode Island, according to Ann Martin and Virgina Clark (What Women Wrote: Scenarios, 1912–1929 26).^[4] Scenarist Eustace Hale Hall has described screen writing in this early period:

Scenario writing as an art should be worked out on a scientific basis. The writing of a scenario after the general mastering of principles, should not consume more than one day. An energetic author should produce three or four each week even with the present rates of $25 as a minimum for a good script. He should be able after two months of “laying in stock” to sell one out of every three photoplays he has created. (3)

In 1915 Mary became a screenwriter for Fox Films and by 1916 was listed as Chief Screenwriter for Fox Films according to the Catalogue of Stories and Plays Owned by the Fox Film Corporation. In this capacity Murillo wrote over thirty scripts, scenarios, and adaptations for films produced by Fox. Anita Loos described the work of the scenarist at this time:

Each studio employs a scenario editor who is on the lookout for good magazine stories or plays or original scripts. He himself is not so much a writer as an analyst, who knows what kind stories his public wants; generally he is an old newspaperman or an ex-magazine editor. Having bought the story, he turns it over to a scenarist—the “continuity writer” who really gives to the story its screen value—hence the very large price paid for this work when it is well done.

Scenario writers are paid according to the type of work they do. If they write original stories they may get from one thousand to twenty thousand dollars for them. Of course, the published works of notable authors or the stage hits of famous playwrights bring more. Writers doing adaptations or “continuities” of the stories of others are more often paid by the week. The big scenario writers get salaries ranging up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. (Emerson and Loos 38)

Many of these films were dramas produced at Fox’s Fort Lee, New Jersey, studio starring pioneer “vamp,” Theda Bara. The vampire character was a trademark for Bara. Her real name was actually Theodosia Goodman. In Gold and the Woman (1916) Bara is Juliet de Cordova an aristocratic Mexican exile who becomes secretary for wealthy Colonel Ernest Dent. The Colonel falls in love with de Córdova when he mistakenly thinks that his blind wife is dead. Dent then goes on a spending spree with Juliet and drinks himself to death. The New York Times Film Reviewer, wrote on March 17, 1916 that Gold and the Woman recalled A Fool There Was, which he identifies as the best Theda Bara Film to date. Gold and the Woman was directed by James Vincent.

In The Vixen (1916), directed by J. Gordon Edwards, Theda Bara as Elsie Drummond is described in a December 1916 Motion Picture World column, “Reviewers Advance Notes,” as a “heartless love pirate,” and the “world’s wickedest woman” (9). Ironically, another contemporary review in Variety titled “Theda Bara Films Test Plot Writers,” begins:

The ingenuity of the men who write scenarios for Theda Bara must be hard pressed at times, because Miss Bara, according to her Press Agent is a perfect specimen of the “vampire” type, and the story must be bounded on four sides by a certain kind of atmosphere.

Obviously Mary and other presumed “men” were quite able to provide this atmosphere.

Several of Murillo’s scenarios for Fox also had aristocratic European themes set in England, Scotland, Renaissance Italy, Spain, and France. Others were melodramas, one a Western melodrama and another was set in a poor white mountaineer background. Five of her Fox screenplay scripts for this period, Bitter Truth, Soldier’s Oath, Environment, The Evil That Men Do, and the Vixen are in existence.^[5] At Fox, Murillo wrote for directors Herbert Brenon, James Vincent, and J. Gordon Edwards.

William Fox’s treatment of directors like Brenon did not augur well for scenarists like Murillo. When Brenon attracted media attention for producing the blockbuster Daughter of the Gods, William Fox stole the publicity by claiming “to have directed every inch of the film by Western Union” from his offices in Los Angeles. The outraged Brenon sued Fox, resigned and was hired by Selznick to direct leading actress Nazimova in War Brides. William Fox then produced a takeoff titled War Brides Secret, which was written by Murillo and which generated another lawsuit according to Terry Ramsaye (704–77).

Scenarists’ pay at this time was considered relatively good, yet the writers, who were mainly women, were treated as little more than slaves by film moguls such as William Fox. The great Frances Marion described her, less, than wonderful interview with William Fox in these terms:

“Why does a pretty girl like you want to be a writer”

“Because I like to write.”

“Listen cuteness, don’t try to be a foolish somebody. Nobody cares nothing about female writers. Actresses—Yes, they got glamour—but writers, the poor schlemiels! Now if you’re smart you’ll gamble on yourself. Easy just like tossing a coin.”

“A coin, Mr Fox, can only fall heads or tails. I’ll gamble on heads, they last longer.” (Off with Their Heads 29)

When Upton Sinclair interviewed William Fox for the latter’s biography, he asked the mogul to discuss screenwriters at Fox Films. Fox replied that he could not remember the names of any of the writers. He baldly stated that it was his wife who actually developed most of the concepts for his films.

After 1917 Mary Murillo left Fox Films to work as a contract screenwriter for a series of production companies. In 1918 according to the Motion Picture Studio Directory 1918 (224), she was living in New York and writing for Metro Films. At Metro she appears to have worked with June Mathis, who was head scenarist and a director. Murillo probably worked with Mathis on actress Alla Nazimova’s films Out of the Fog and The Red Lantern. Mary then worked for Joseph Schenk’s Associated First National, writing for Norma Talmadge, Constance Talmadge, and directors Herbert Brenon, J. Chester Franklin, and George Archainaud.

On these films for Associated First National she may have collaborated with writer-director Frances Marion and may have contributed to some film projects of Lois Weber.^[6] Existing documentation consists of film credits or copyright registrations which identify her as scenarist, or adaptor. This demonstrates her contributions but does not clarify the exact extent of her contribution to films written by Frances Marion and Lois Weber.

From 1916 to 1921 Murillo, like many film people, appears to have lived primarily in New York City with some time spent in Los Angeles.^[7] Murillo last appears as a screenwriter for three British films produced between 1921 and 1924 (Low 452, 478, 482). These films were The White Slippers (1922), Stoll Studios, Screenwriter; The Sins Ye Do (1924), Stoll Studios, Screenwriter; and The Woman Redeemed (1927), Stoll Studios, Screenwriter. For Stoll she wrote for Directors Fred Leroy Granville and Sinclair Hill. After 1927 Murillo disappears entirely from view.

Among the directors for whom Mary Murillo wrote were Herbert Brenon, Edgar Lewis, Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber, Francis Marion, J. Chester Franklin, George Archainaud, and Oscar La Apfel. The first-class work of directors like Herbert Brenon, which has been discussed by Richard Koszarski (123–26) may reflect, in part the quality of Mary’s writing. She wrote for actors Theda Bara, William Farum, Norma Talmadge, Petrova, Nazimova, Ethel Barrymore, Harold Lockwood, Emily Stevens, and Frank Hall.

Murillo’s residence at the Algonquin Hotel and association with Lois Weber, France Marion and Norma Talmadge indicates that she lived on the periphery of the Algonquin Round Table group.^[8] There are, however, no direct references to her in the biographical and autobiographical literature about the Algonquin circle.^[9]

Perhaps she shared what Gary Cary identified as Anita Loos’s dislike of the sharp tongues of the “Vicious Circle” (Anita Loos: A Biography 65). As a employee or associate of the Talmadges, Marion, and Loos, Mary would have formed part of their entourage.^[10] Murillo may have been viewed as an employee or assistant who was not considered as a social peer. The extent to which she was Spanish or Latin American, or perhaps even her Spanish name, may have been an isolating factor during this period. She may also have been somewhat older than those she worked with. She may have been part of the earlier generation mentioned by Margaret Case Harriman prior to the establishment of the Algonquin Round Table. These are some possible reasons why she is not mentioned in any of the literature on the Algonquin Hotel and Round Table.

As a valued contract writer and sometime freelancer doing scenarios, touchups, and rewrites, she may also have suffered from the “poor schlemiel syndrome” articulated by William Fox in his biography. She many have been one of many writers of declining fortunes who also lived at the Algonquin, some of whom received his assistance as mentioned by Hotelier Frank Case (361).

Surviving documentation of Mary Murillio’s work includes films and filmscripts. Existing films include The Heart of Wetona and The Wonderful Chance.^[11] The Library of Congress lists copies of twenty-one films in the catalog of copyright entries (Motion Pictures, 1912–1939 1114). Recurrent themes in these scripts include the existence of identical doubles with opposite experiences; poor females overcoming threats, or circumstances which could destroy them; and chance circumstances which change the protagonist’s life.

Twentieth Century Fox has copies of five scripts in its Feature Story files. These are Bitter Truth, Soldier’s Oath, Environment, The Evil That Men Do, and the Vixen.^[12] The Soldier’s Oath (1915) starred William Farnum. Farnum is Pierre, a French soldier, who protects a dying officer, the Count De Morave, from Lazarre, a looter. As the Count dies he makes Pierre take an oath to give his hidden valuables to his heir. Pierre gives the jewels to his wife but is followed by Lazarre, who kills her to get them. Pierre is accused of the murder of his own wife and is condemned to prison. His daughter Mavis is adopted by the family of a noble officer, the Duke De Auberg. After many years Pierre is pardoned and becomes the gardener for the Duke. In the meantime, Lazarre assumes the identity of the Count De Morave. Lazarre through deceit, obtains permission to marry Mavis. Pierre exposes Lazarre as a imposter, murderer, and thief for which he is on trial as the story ends.

In the melodrama Environment (1916) twin sisters separated in childhood grow up, one in miserable poverty, and the other in great opulence. The characters associated with each child are also environmental opposites. In The Vixen (1916) Helen, the daughter of drunken Admiral Drummond; tries to keep him sober. In the Bitter Truth (1917), a melodrama, the child Anne has a drunken father who forces her to become a pickpocket as her pathetic mother looks on. The arrest of the father momentarily saves Anne. Fifteen years later, a saloon keeper named Dolan is attracted to the grown-up Anne who despises him. Anne’s father, released from prison, tries to force her to marry Dolan.

In the Evil That Men Do (1917), Sands is a hack writer at his wits’ end, who writes a cynical book, The New Thought, advocating self interest and hedonism. The book is a huge success and influences thousands to pursue selfish indulgence and conceit. Sands’s family becomes wealthy. One day his son George, a college student reads The New Thought and rushes to ravish a young servant girl whom he has admired. Sands becomes rich as his book goes through several editions. Sands’s daughter reads the book and puts morals aside to become the mistress of his publisher’s son. Sands’s wife finds out, and tells him. Sands rushes to his daughter, who quotes his hedonistic principle “pleasure for the moment” to his face. As Sands returns home he sees his book being sold to eager crowds in the streets. He finds that his son has been killed by the servant girl’s father. In despair Sands seizes a copy of the book, tearing it into shreds. His body is found covered with the torn pages. His death is attributed to overwork.

While at Metro Pictures in 1919 she wrote for Olga Petrova, the scenario for The Panther Women. Petrova, Anthony Slide has noted, was one of the few film stars of the silent era with a femnist orientation.^[13] She is quoted as stating “The only women I want to play are women who do things. I want to encourage women to do things—to take their rightful place in life” (Early American Cinema 54.)

A review of Mary’s story for The Wonderful Chance (1920) directed by George Archainaud, indicates that while the plot was improbable, “it makes on the whole a very good story.” The story is about a reformed ex-convict named Tom, who commits a burglary to pay for the medical care of a friend who has been wounded by the police. In fleeing from a detective he enters a hotel where is he is mistaken for a British Lord of whom he is an exact double. Taken to a welcome party, he becomes engaged to his host’s daughter. Meanwhile, the real Lord has been kidnapped. The kidnappers are old associates of Tom’s who
try to involve him. His now recovered friend helps him switch places to save the real Lord. He escapes and is sent back to prison, but his new fiance promises to wait for him. The acting was said by the reviewer to be excellent (Kinograph 1921). In several productions for First National, Mary again wrote for Irish director Herbert Brenon. Norma Talmadge starred in both The Sign on the Door and The Passion Flower (1921). An adaptation from a work by Channing Pollock, The Sign on the Door involves a women who takes the blame for a murder that is to protect her family. Another adaptation, The Passion Flower set in Spain concerns a father’s insane infatuation for a stepdaughter leading to the murder of her mother.^[14]

Murillo’s work indicates familiarity with English and Anglo American culture and language. She was by birth and education, upper middle-class British with broad experience as an actress and writer. Her biographical entry in the Motion Picture Studio Directory, 1918 (224) states that her recreations included riding and painting. There is relatively little evidence of Spanish language or Latino Spanish cultural influence in her work. While some of her scripts have Spanish and Latin American characters, there is little direct indication of such influence. Without further information it is not possible to relate characters or sequences to her own personal experiences.

Film historian Richard Koszarski (Early American Cinema) has described the films of Norma Talmadge directed by Herbert Brenon as one of the “last remaining secrets” of silent film (283). Koszarksi is of the opinion that examination of these films could lead to a revaluation of the importance of Talmadge as an actress, and Brenon as a director. It is not beyond imagination to suppose this could include a reevaluation of the importance of Murillo, who was the screenwriter for several of these films.

Mary Murillo remains an elusive and yet significant figure of the silent film period. A contemporary and associate of June Mathis, Lois Weber, and Francis Marion, she wrote the screen plays for over fifty-three feature films produced in the United States and England between 1911 and 1927. She is one of the few Hispanas, along with Elvira de la Mora, and perhaps one or two other Latinas to have made a career as a screenwriter. There is no contemporary Latina screenwriter who has written scripts for so many feature films—and there may not be another for many years to come.

Works Cited

Acker, Ally. Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema. New York: Continuum, 1991.

Bell, Geoffrey. The Golden Gate and the Silver Screen. New York: Cornwall, 1984.

Benedict, Stewart, ed. The Literary Guide to the United States. Facts on File. New York, 1981.

Bryan, J. Merry Gentlemen and One Lady. New York: Atheneum, 1985.

Cary, Gary. Anita Loos: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1988.

Case, Frank. Tales of A Wayward Inn. New York: Garden City, 1940.

Drennan, Robert E. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Citadel, 1968.

Emerson, John, and Anita Loos. Breaking into the Movies. Philadelphia: Jacobs, 1921.

Frewin, Leslie. The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker. New York: Macmillan, 1986.

Hall, Eustace Hale. The Art of the Photoplay. New York: Dillingham, 1913.

Harriman, Margaret Case. The Vicious Circle. New York: Rinehart, 1951.

___. Take Them Up Tenderly. New York: Knopf, 1944.

Hecht, Ben. A Child of the Century. New York: Primus, 1982.

Fox Film Corporation. Catalogue of the Stories and Plays Owned by the Fox Film Corporation. Los Angeles: Times Mirror, 1935.

___. Review. The Wonderful Chance. Kinograph. 1921.

Koszarski, Richard. Hollywood Directors 1914–1940. New York: Oxford UP, 1976.

___. An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915–1928. New York: Charles Scriber’s, 1990.

Library of Congress. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Motion Pictures, 1912–1939. Washington: Library of Congress, 1951.

Loos, Anita. The Talmadge Girls. New York: Viking, 1978.

___. Kiss Hollywood Goodby. New York: Viking, 1974.

___. Cast of Thousands. New York: Grosset, 1977.

Low, Rachel. The History of the British Film, 1918–1929. London: Allen and Unwin, 1971.

Marion, Frances. Off With Their Heads. 1974.

Martin, Ann, and Virgina Clark, eds. What Women Wrote: Sceanarios: 1912–1929. Frederick, MD: A Microfilm Publication of University Publications of America, 1987.

Motion Picture Studio Directory. New York, Motion Picture News, 1918.

Motion Picture Studio Directory. New York, Motion Picture News, 1921.

Petrova, Olga. Bread with My Butter: The Memoirs of Olga Petrova. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1942.

Ramsaye, Terry. A Million and One Nights. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926.

Rios-Bustamante, Antonio. “Latino Participation in the Hollywood Film Industry, 1911–1945.” Chicanos and Film: Essays on Chicano Representation and Resistance. Ed. Chon Noriega. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1994.

___. Latino Hollywood 1911–1940: A History of Latinos in the Film Industry. Forthcoming.

Slide, Anthony. Early American Cinema. Revised Edition. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1994.

___. Early Women Directors. London: Barnes, 1977.

Sinclair, Upton. William Fox. 1929.

Talmadge, Margaret. The Talmadge Sisters. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1924.

1914	Strand of Blond Hair
1915	Little Minister, Co-Director with Oscar C. La Apfel; Screen writer
1915	Screenwriter for Fox Films
1915	Little Gypsy, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist, Co-Director
1915	A Soldier’s Oath, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1915	The Unfaithful Wife, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	The Minister, Eastern Film Corporation, Providence, Rhode Island, Screenwriter
1916–1917	Chief screenwriter for Fox Films
1916	Blazing Life, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	Ambition, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	East Lynne, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	Enivonment, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	Eternal Sappho, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	Gold and the Woman, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	The Green Eyed Monster, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	Her Double Life, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	Love and Hate, Fox Films, Drama, Scenarist
1916	The War Bride’s Secret
1916	Unwelcome Mother
1916	Sins of Men
1916	The Vixen
1916	Women’s Question
1916	Parisian Romance
1916	A Fight for Happiness
1917	She
1917	Tangled Lives
1917	Two Little Imps

1917	Wrath of Love
1917	The Bitter Truth
1917	Sister Against Sister
1917	Love’s Law
1917	New York Peacock
1917	The Evil That Men Make
1917	Responsibility
1918	Red Horse Hill, Metro Films, New York City
1918	Outwitted, Metro Films, New York City
1918	The Eternal Mother. Metro Films, New York City
1918	Retribution
1918	The Heart of Wetona, Norma Talmadge
1918	The Forbidden City, Norma Talmadge
1919	The Panther Women, Petrova
1919	The Other Man’s Wife, Frank Hall
1920	The Wonderful Chance, Selznick Pictures, Author of original work
1921	Perjury, Fox Films
1921	Passion Flower, First National, Tragedy, Adaptor
1921	The Sign on the Door, Associated First National, Melodrama, Adaptor
1921	Shams of Society, Walsh Fielding Productions, Domestic Melodrama, Adaptor
1922	Scenarist on films produced by Lois Weber, Frances Marion, Norma Talmadge
1922	The Secret of the Storm Country
1922	The White Slippers, Stoll Studios, England, Screenwriter
1922	Moonshine Valley, Fox Films, Western Melodrama
1924	The Sins Ye Do, Stoll Studios, England, Screenwriter
1927	The Woman Redeemed, Stoll Studios, England, Screenwriter

^[1]Besides Mary Murillo, Mexican actress, writer Elvira de la Mora also worked in the American film industry. De la Mora is best known for the adaptation play for “Ora Ponciano” produced by Producciones Soria and Columbia Pictures, 1936.

^[2]Correspondence with the British Film Institute, the Bradford Public Library, and the Archdiocese of Westminister have thus far yielded no additional biographical information. Murillo is an extremely rare name in Britain and examination of British birth records has so far failed to locate Murillo or her family. The British Film Institute identifies her as British. She first appeared in New York in 1911 as a minor actress with the Old English Comedy Company, and her last three films were written for the British film company, Stoll. The Jewish Historical Society of England, and the Archivist of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation rendered great assistance in determining that “we have no reason to suppose that Mary Murillo could have been either Sephardic or indeed Jewish. As you say, Bradford’s Jewish community came primarily from Germany.” Examination of histories of Bradford’s small and primarily German origin Jewish community show no mention of the name Murillo there.

Other Anglo Latinas include actress Martita Hunt who was born and raised on an Argentine sheep ranch. Since her arrival on the British stage in 1921 she alternated stage and film roles, which included Becket and Great Expectations.

^[3]New York Times Theater Reviews New York 1992. Reviews of “ She Stoops to Conquer.” The New York Times 10 Nov. 1912. Review of the “Rivals.” The New York Times 20 Dec. 1912. Murillo’s performance in these minor roles is noted but not discussed in the reviews.

^[4]Osar La Apfel was also co-director, with Cecil B. DeMille, of The Squawman produced for Lasky Feature Play Company (1913) (Koszarki, An Evening’s Entertainment 227). The Squawman was the first feature film made in Hollywood.

^[5]Copies of scripts provided courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corportion, Letter, Ms. Ellen M. Gameral, Feature Story Files, February 1991.

^[6]Anita Loos has described this period: “Broadly speaking, the movies are made up of alliances between producing companies and distributing companies. For example, the Constance Talmadge Corporation produces the photoplays in which Miss Talmadge is starred, and this Company is allied with the First National Exhibitors Circuit which takes the completed film and sells it to theater managers in every part of the world. The Constance Talmadge Corporation’s duty is to make a photoplay and deliver it to the First National Exhibitors Circuit; the latter company duplicates the film in hundreds of “prints,” advertises it, rents it to exhibitors, and sees to the delivery of the film. In the same way Nazimova makes comedies and releases them through the Metro Corporation, her distributor” (Emerson and Loos 5).

^[7]In 1918 she was listed as living at 11 E. 55th St., New York City. In 1921 she was listed as living at the Hotel Algonquin, Riverside Drive. She is also listed as having lived at Los Angeles addresses (Motion Picture Studio Directory; Motion Picture Studio Directory).

^[8]Members of the Algonquin Circle included Franklin Pierce Adams, Dorthy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Robert Benchley, Heywood Broun, Ben Hecht, Herman Mankiewicz, Ring Lardner, and other future literary luminaries. Several became leading Hollywood screenwriters of the era from 1930 to the 1970s. Robert E. Drennan, The Algonquin Wits, provides a useful introduction to the Round Table.

^[9]See Frank Case, Tales of A Wayward Inn; Margaret Case Harriman, The Vicious Circle and Take Them Up Tenderly; Robert E. Drennan, The Algonquin Wits; J. Bryan, Merry Gentlemen and One Lady; Anita Loos, Kiss Hollywood Goodby, Cast of Thousands, and The Talmadge Girls; Leslie Frewin, The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker; Ben Hecht, A Child of the Century; Stewart Benedict, ed., The Literary Guide to the United States; Gary Cary, Anita Loos: A Biography; Margaret Talmadge, The Talmadge Sisters; and Olga Petrova, Bread with My Butter: The Memoirs of Olga Petrova.

^[10]According to Anita Loos “During Joe Schenk’s summers in Bayside, Long Island, he gave massive barbecues. There is a large group photograph of a barbecue at the Joseph Schenk/Norma Talmadge estate at Bayshore Long Island. It is quite possible that Mary Murillo is one of the unidentified women in this photograph (The Talmadge Girls 72–73).

^[11]These films are available on videotape for viewing at UCLA by arrangement with the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

^[12]Copies of these scripts were provided to the author courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

^[13]Anthony Slide states “The only blantantly femnist screen actress of the decade was Olga Petrova (1884–1977) . . . Madame Petrova starred in 26 features, all of which were stories of women with strong characters, strong minds, and strong abilities” (154–55).

^[14]The 1922 film, Sister Against Sister, directed by Herbert Brenon was a remake of the 1917 film of the same names, written by Murillo.