Flickers of Desire: Movie Stars of the 1910s

Chapter 10 Douglas Fairbanks: Icon of Americanism

218 ★★★★★★★★★★ ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩ 10 Douglas Fairbanks Icon of Americanism SCOTT CURTIS The rise of Douglas Fairbanks (1883–1939) in the late 1910s was nothing short of spectacular. In a variety of films for Triangle, Artcraft, and United Artists, Fairbanks played cheery, athletic young men who bounded their way over obstacles and rivals to get the girl and the prize. His first film debuted in September 1915, but in a fan survey three years later, Fairbanks already ranked third in a long list of popular stars behind Mary Pickford and Marguerite Clark (Motion Picture Magazine, September 1918, 6). By the end of the decade, after only four years in the industry, Fairbanks was the most popular male star in Hollywood, second only to Pickford in fame and fortune. Among the reasons for this quick ascent we can count a Douglas Fairbanks, circa 1919. Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. successful filmmaking formula that displayed Fairbanks’s sound business sense and his ability to surround himself with top talent, as well as a welloiled publicity machine that kept him constantly in the public eye. We can also count hard work: from the fall of 1915 to the end of 1919, Fairbanks made nearly thirty films, published two books and countless articles, formed his own production company, criss-crossed the nation several times selling Liberty Bonds for the war effort, and co-founded United Artists. We must also not underestimate the vigor and flexibility of the Fairbanks star persona, which he trained and developed on Broadway, adding bulk, definition , and endurance in Hollywood. Everybody liked “Doug,” it seemed, and this amiability was certainly a key to his success. But there was something deeper and more meaningful in the Fairbanks persona. Perhaps this energetic, even indefatigable star became so popular because he projected an image of Americans as they wanted to see themselves, and as they still want to see themselves: as youthful and athletic, optimistic and adventurous , decisive and democratic. Ultimately, at a crucial point in the nation’s entry on the world stage, Fairbanks gave his domestic and worldwide audience a pleasing vision of what it meant to be American. Surveying the films and press about Fairbanks reveals a remarkably consistent picture, an almost seamless identity between private actor and public character. To be sure, this is the goal of all early star discourse—to present the actor as the embodiment of his or her roles, and to emphasize the compatibility of these roles with the “real” life of the actor (see deCordova ). In Fairbanks’s case, however, the discourse is unusually insistent in this regard. Even from his days on the theatrical stage, reviewers noted that “off the stage, one imagines, Mr. Fairbanks must be very much the sort of young man he is called upon to play” (New York Times, 23 August 1908, 9). When plays were written especially for him, as in this case, we can imagine this fit to be particularly apt, but throughout his career Fairbanks insisted that he was not a great actor, instead emphasizing the importance of “personality” for his success. Early serial characters were often named after the actors who played them (Kathlyn Williams in The Adventures of Kathlyn [1913], for example) in order to stress the identity of actor and character; in an interesting twist on that strategy, many of Fairbanks’s early films have characters with such obviously contrived names (Sunny Wiggins, Passin’ Through, Steve O’Dare, Blaze Derringer) that it has the same effect, with a sly, satirical wink: Fairbanks is just playing himself. For our purposes, this “self” is, ironically, an effect of his representations in film and in the written discourse about him. Any screen persona is an amalgam of different qualities in various measures. If we were to melt down DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS 219 and separate Fairbanks’s winning alloy, forged by his numerous appearances onscreen and in the press, we would find at least four distinct but related elements. Foremost, the films and publicity emphasize his youthfulness. Even though he was thirty-two years old when he started making films, he is nearly always portrayed as carefree and adventurous, as someone who brings boundless enthusiasm and energy to whatever tasks he faces. Gaylyn Studlar argues persuasively that there is something Peter Pan–like in this fantasy; Fairbanks’s boyishness means that he was never weighed down by commitments or responsibilities (This Mad Masquerade...