7/7/22
Newsletter34
The Ass Crack of Dawn
It’s still the middle of the night.
George Dolenz was the second-biggest stuntman in Hollywood in the 1940s and ‘50’s. George’s son was Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. Floyd Crosby won the third Oscar ever given for cinematography, for “Tabu.” Floyd’s son is David Crosby.
The first western movie star was “Broncho” Billy Anderson (real name, Maxwell Henry Aronson), was a Jew from Arkansas. He appeared in the ground-breaking early silent western, “The Great Train Robbery” in 1903. Anderson went on to make 148 western shorts. He formed one of the first big film companies, Essanay (which was really S&A, for Spoor and Anderson), in Chicago in 1907. In 1916 Essanay was the first company to hire Charlie Chaplin and let him make his own films. Those Essanay films made Charlie the biggest movie star in the world, so he promptly quit Essanay.
Selig-Polyscope was one of the very first film companies, started in 1898 in Chicago, by Col. William Selig. Selig quickly became known for their jungle movies, which were difficult to shoot in Chicago. Selig opened a studio in L.A. in 1909 and built a zoo next door, Selig Zoo, L.A.’s first zoo. Selig zoo rented animals to the other studios, including Leo the lion at the beginning of all MGM movies.
Carl Laemmle (pronounced lem-lee) was a short German Jew who opened the first movie theater in Chicago in 1906. He then went into film distribution, then production, and formed the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. He moved his company to L.A., brought a big hunk of land from David Burbank, and started Universal Pictures in its own little town called Universal City. Carl Laemmle had as many as 37 relatives on his payroll. The amusing ditty of the time was, “Carl Laemmle has a very big family.”
I have always liked Leonard Maltin, and I bought his very first movie guide in 1969, then continued to buy them until 2015 when he stopped publishing them. Leonard spoke at the nearby Jewish Center a couple of years ago and it was packed. He brought up the recent Netflix documentary called “Five Came Back” about five big Hollywood directors who joined the military and went overseas during WWII. Leonard said, “The five directors were: John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, George Stevens . . .” then he got stuck. He just stood there for a brief moment with a blank look on his face. I hollered out, “Frank Capra!” Leonard smiled and said, “Yes, Frank Capra,” then continued with his speech. After the show a half-dozen people I knew from various stages of my life came up to me and said, “When I heard someone yell Frank Capra, I knew it was you.” It tickles me to have helped Leonard Maltin.
There’s a wonderful orange edge on the clouds announcing the dawn.